2001: Information and Much More from Answers.com
- ️Thu Nov 17 4698
Saudi Arabian terrorists hijack U.S. commercial airliners September 11 and use them as missiles to destroy New York's World Trade Center and damage the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., killing nearly 2,900 in the twin towers (initial estimates are much higher) plus 189 at the Pentagon in the worst such tragedy ever, with the highest death toll on a single day in America since the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. A Los Angeles-bound Boeing 767 (American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston) carrying 81 passengers and 11 crew hits the North Tower of the Trade Center at 8:48 in the morning; a Los Angeles-bound 767 (American Airlines Flight 175 out of Boston) carrying 54 passengers and 11 crew hits the South Tower at 9:03; both planes are loaded with jet fuel, they explode in flames that reach close to 2000° F., and both towers soon collapse as the intense heat destroys their steel girders; a Los Angeles-bound Boeing 757 (American Airlines Flight 77 out of Dulles Airport) carrying 58 passengers and six in crew crashes into the Pentagon, killing about 125 plus the people on the plane; a San Francisco-bound Boeing 757 (United Airlines Flight 93 out of Newark) carrying 38 passengers and seven in crew crashes in a field about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh at about 10 o'clock after some passengers overpower the suicidal hijackers (who are armed only with box cutters and plastic knives), diverting their plane from its intended target, possibly the White House or Capitol. "Nous sommes tous Américains" ("We are all Americans"), the Paris newspaper Le Monde says September 12 (editor-in-chief Jean-Marie Colombani has written the headline), but the FBI and CIA have failed to exchange information on potential terrorists, and President George W. Bush has paid scant attention to an August 6 intelligence briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike U.S." The FBI has only 21 Arabic-speaking operatives, and both services have dismissed Islamic experts because of sexual orientation. All except one of the 19 terrorists on the three planes turn out to have been Saudi Arabians raised in the Wahabi belief that materialism is evil, that the West represents a threat to their austere form of Islam, and that death is preferable to peaceful coexistence. Former president Bill Clinton's Republican secretary of defense William S. Cohen resisted drastic cuts in U.S. military strength; President Bush's secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has been more intent on downsizing the military than beefing up intelligence capabilities.
Afghan rebel chief Ahmed Shah Massoud dies September 15 at age 48 of wounds received in an assassination attempt a week earlier by two Arab men posing as journalists. Evidence soon emerges that Islamic extremist Osama bin Laden played a role in the terrorist attacks on America, President Bush delivers a well-written address to a joint session of Congress September 20, vowing to bring the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks to justice, threatening to treat any regime that harbors terrorists with the same punishment as the perpetrators, and demanding that Afghanistan's ruling Taliban Party turn over bin Laden. Having promised in his campaign to be a "uniter, not a divider," he finds the country united by the shock of events, but the Taliban refuses to surrender bin Laden absent any proof that he was responsible for the September 11 attacks, and since so many regimes harbor terrorists there are fears that Bush has in effect declared war on dozens of nations. Bush makes no move to counter the anti-American sentiment that pervades the Muslim world, and although cooler heads delay implementing his bellicose threats to take bin Laden "dead or alive," U.S. air and naval forces attack Afghan targets with British support beginning the night of October 7. The list of military targets is quickly exhausted, and while U.S. planes drop some food for starving Afghans, images of damage wrought by the air raids appear predictably on TV screens throughout the Muslim world, fueling anger against the rich, "Godless" Americans.
U.S. B-52s begin bombing attacks in Afghanistan November 1, the Northern Alliance of anti-Taliban forces takes Mazar-i-Sharif November 11 as alliance troops advance in the wake of extensive U.S. bombing, Kabul falls 2 days later, and by the end of November Taliban resistance has virtually ended except in the mountains, but the alliance is made up largely of Tajiks and Uzbeks, it does not reflect the Pashtun ethnic group to which most Afghans belong, Pakistan and the United States opposed formation of an Afghan government comprised of non-Afghans, and an interim government headed by Hamid Karzai, 44, takes office at year's end with bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders still at large. Karzai fled the country in 1979 and initially supported the Taliban during his years of exile but turned against it in 1999 after his father was murdered while walking home from a mosque in Quetta and he became chief of the large Popolzai tribe, part of the dominant Pashtun group (see 2002).
President Bush asks his secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld November 21 to begin developing a secret plan for making war on Iraq (or so it will later be reported). Bush has received a letter September 20 from the right-wing Project for the New American Century, saying that "even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the [September 11] attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power." Rumsfeld asks Gen. Tommy Franks to work on the plan, but Franks is preoccupied with prosecuting the war in Afghanistan (see 2002).
The United States indicts French Muslim radical Zacarias Moussaoui December 11 on charges of having "conspired with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to murder thousands of innocent people in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania." Now 33, Moussaoui was arrested at his Minneapolis hotel room August 16 on charges of immigration violations after officials at an Egan, Minn., flight school reported to the FBI that he had demanded lessons in how to fly a jumbo jet, but the public will not learn for another 8 months that an FBI agent at Phoenix urged the bureau to investigate men from the Middle East enrolled in U.S. flight schools, citing bin Laden by name and suggesting that his followers could use the schools to train for terrorist attacks.
President Bush has delivered an eloquent inaugural address January 20, saying, "In the quiet of American conscience, we know that deep, persistent poverty is unworthy of our nation's promise. And whatever our views of its cause, we can agree that children at risk are not at fault." Former journalist Michael Gerson, 36, has written the words, but they fly in the face of several divisive cabinet appointments and some of Bush's early actions, aimed to please right-wing extremists to whom the new president owes his position. More partisan elements at the White House soon marginalize Gerson, asserting unilateral positions that distance the Bush administration from traditional U.S. allies and from mainstream American thinking. Sen. James M. (Merrill) Jeffords, 67, (R. Vt.) announces May 25 that he is quitting the Republican Party to become an independent, thus tilting the balance in the heretofore evenly divided Senate, giving Democrats control of powerful committees, and enabling them better to block right-wing initiatives, but Jeffords has voted for the president's tax bill and delayed his move until the measure won Senate approval.
Outgoing president Bill Clinton draws condemnation for issuing certain pardons on his last day in office, notably to fugitive commodity traders Marc Rich and Pincus Green, who traded Iranian oil in the early 1980s and have lived in Switzerland since 1983. Few Clinton supporters defend the action, and Clinton haters make capital of it, but critics of the new Bush administration say the pardons are no worse than rewarding big Republican campaign contributors who will profit from massive tax cuts, possible elimination of estate taxes, relaxation of environmental restrictions, and huge new defense contracts.
FBI agents arrest 25-year veteran fellow agent Robert Hanssen, 56, at Washington, D.C., February 18 on charges of having accepted more than $600,000 in cash and diamonds from Russian agents in exchange for information far more damaging than what spy Aldrich Ames provided before his arrest in 1994 (Hanssen's brother-in-law told the FBI about him 10 years ago but the Bureau did not act on the information). President Bush meets with Russia's President Putin at Washington and at Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch in November, but while they agree to a mutual reduction in their nations' nuclear arsenals Bush cannot persuade Putin to abandon the 1972 ABM Treaty and agree to any U.S. development of an anti-missile shield.
A letter from a clerk at the House of Representatives announces July 26 that scholars may now have access to documents from 444 linear feet of records produced by the House Un-American Affairs Committee (HUAC) that held hearings from 1945 to 1975.
Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic surrenders to Serbian authorities early April 1 after all-night negotiations in which he has threatened to shoot himself, his wife, and his daughter (see 2000). Officials say he will not be transferred to The Hague to face trial on charges of war crimes for which he was indicted in May 1999 in connection with atrocities in Kosovo but will be tried on domestic charges of financial irregularities, abusive of power, and causing "damage to the Serbian economy." Hostilities escalate meanwhile in Macedonia, where Albanian rebels try to take over the country. Milosevic is moved to The Hague June 29 but denies that the international tribunal has a legitimate right to try him for war crimes.
Billionaire Italian business tycoon Silvio Berlusconi wins election May 13 to head a new government, replacing the 12-month-old government of Prime Minister Giuliano Amato. Now 64, Berluscon's first government collapsed after 7 months in 1994 amidst charges of massive corruption at a time when the nation's debt-ridden economy seemed irretrievable. His private holding company Fininvest controls Italy's three largest private television networks, her publishing group (its properties include the newspaper Il Giornale and the news weekly Panorama, Milan's football (soccer) team, and a financial empire of banks, insurance companies, and real estate; his estimated net worth of $12.8 billion makes him the richest man in the country, he has built the insurgent right-wing political party Forza Italia from scratch, and he has run on a platform of patriotism, tax cuts, and free-market capitalism. Berlusconi defeats former Rome mayor Francesco Rutelli despite conflicts-of-interest charges and questions about his ability to govern; he assumes office June 11.
Former Portuguese president Francisco da Costa Gomes dies at Lisbon July 31 at age 87.
Poland's former Communist Party wins a 41 percent plurality in September 23 elections under the name Democratic Left Alliance and forms a coalition October 9 with the Polish Peasants Party, enabling it to form a government under Leszk Miller, who has pledged himself to make painful spending cuts in order to curb the nation's growing budget deficit and gain membership in the European Union. The two parties put pressure on Poland's central bank to relax its tough anti-inflationary monetary policies.
Israel's prime minister Ehud Barak loses office February 6 as former defense minister Ariel Sharon wins overwhelmingly at the polls (see 2000), but Palestinians have boycotted the election, they escalate the violence that erupted last year, Sharon has trouble forming a unity government, and the already shaky "peace process" shows every sign of breaking down completely; the Labor Party agrees February 26 to join in a coalition government, hoping to counter Sharon's hard-line position. Sharon cracks down on Palestinian militants, who continue their violence and in some cases cheer the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. President Bush addresses the United Nations November 11 and makes the first reference by any U.S. president to a future state of Palestine existing side by side with Israel (see 2002).
President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines resigns under pressure January 20 after 2½ years in office as mobs take to the streets in protest against his flagrant corruption. The opposition has used the Internet, a motorcade, and marches to mobilize crowds of demonstrators. A new government takes office headed by his 53-year-old vice president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, an economist whose father, Diosdada Macapagal, was president from 1962 to 1965.
The stern of the U.S. nuclear attack submarine Greeneville collides with the Japanese fisheries training vessel Ehime Maru February 9 in exercises near Pearl Harbor, nine trainees are lost, the presence of civilians on the submarine is blamed in part, President Bush sends an admiral with a personal apology, but the incident strains relations between Tokyo and Washington. Economist Junichiro Koizumi wins election to the presidency of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in April at age 59 with suggestions that the nation's pacifist constitution be revised and becomes the most popular prime minister that Japan has had since before World War II, his party defies predictions by winning elections in late July, and he puts the country's publicly-financed corporations on notice that they will have to make a case by year's end for the economic viability of their businesses (many have run huge deficits), but the party's old guard shows only luke-warm support for Koizumi's positions, and the nation's economy continues to lag as people keep putting their money into low-return savings accounts rather than spending it.
A U.S. Navy surveillance plane collides with a Chinese fighter jet over international waters April 1. The fighter plane plunges into the South China Sea, her pilot is lost, the propeller-driven EP-38 Aries II plane makes an emergency landing on Hainan Island, her 24 crew members are detained, the Chinese demand an apology, the Bush administration merely expresses regret, President Bush has earlier taken a harder line with Beijing than did his predecessor, and the incident threatens to escalate into a major confrontation. China releases the crew members after 11 days, but Bush approves a sale of military equipment to Taiwan and departs from the previous U.S. position of ambiguity with regard to the "one-China" policy by stating unequivocally that the United States will do whatever is necessary to defend Taiwan from attack.
Nepal's king Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev is killed at age 55 along with most of his family at Katmandu June 1 after a 29-year reign that has seen a degree of democracy introduced in the mountainous kingdom (see 1990). It is first reported that Crown Prince Nirajan massacred his family with an automatic weapon before turning the gun on himself, it is then reported that the weapon fired accidentally and that Nirajan (now King Dipendra) is on life support at a local hospital, he dies June 4 at age 29, and Birendra's 53-year-old brother Gyanendra is crowned June 4 amidst rioting in the streets of Katmandu.
Indonesia's parliament charges President Abdurrahman Wahid with corruption and ousts him July 22 after 20 months in office, the army ignores his orders, and Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri, now 54, is sworn in as president, but she warns in November that civil conflicts threaten to break Indonesia apart (see East Timor, 2002).
Former South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu dies at Boston September 29 at age 76; Cold War arms-control negotiator Paul C. Warnke of a coronary embolism at Washington, D.C., October 31 at age 81, having helped the late President Johnson reduce U.S. involvement in Vietnam 30 years ago.
Tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir escalate following an attack by Pakistani terrorists that kills 38 people at Srinigar October 1. Britain's prime minister Tony Blair and U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell condemn the attack and try to mollify New Delhi in the face of demands in India for attacks on Pakistan-based terrorist training camps, but a five-man suicide squad of Islamic terrorists attack the Parliament building at New Delhi December 13, raising new fears of a war between two nations possessed of nuclear weapons. Both sides mobilize troops on their 1,800-mile border in the largest such mobilization since 1947.
Congo president Laurent Kabila is assassinated by his bodyguard January 16 and succeeded by his 29-year-old son Joseph, but the new head of state was raised and educated in Tanzania, many view him as an outsider who cannot speak French or the languages of western Congo, and his country is riven with intertribal warfare and fighting against incursions from neighboring countries.
Senegal's first president and major poet Léopold Senghor dies at his French home in Normandy December 20 at age 95.
Former Haitian president Paul Magloire dies at his suburban Port-au-Prince home January 12 at age 94; former Bolivian president Victor Paz Estenssoro of a blood clot at his native Tarija June 7 at age 93.
Peru's voters go to the polls June 3 and elect Alejandro Toledo president. Now 56, the "Cholo from Harvard" (Toledo also has a doctorate from Stanford) grew up in poverty but attracted Peace Corps workers in the 1960s, received a scholarship to the University of San Francisco, and has served at the World Bank. He defeats former president Alan García with promises to fight corruption, guarantee the independence of the judiciary, and cut military spending.
Former Argentine president Carlos Saul Menem is indicted July 4 on charges of having led a conspiracy and falsified documents in order to smuggle arms to Croatia and Ecuador between 1991 and 1995. Blaming an Argentine arms dealer (who has fled to South Africa) and officials at an army weapons factory, Menem insists that the arms were supposed to go to Venezuela and Panama. President Ferdinand de la Rua resigns December 20 after just 2 years in office as the country's economic crisis produces food riots that leave 28 people dead in cities that include Buenos Aires. The presidents successors fail to correct underlying economic problems and the nation verges on bankruptcy.
Mexican politician Carlos Hank González dies of prostate cancer at his Santiago Tianguistenco ranch August 11 at age 73, having long been a major force behind the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). He has gained fame with his remark, "A politician who is poor is a poor politician." Reformer Maria de los Angeles Tames, 27, is shot dead execution style in front of her parents by a gunman at a Mexico City suburb September 5, having worked to defeat the PRI and root out corruption.
Former Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega loses a bid to regain power November 6 as voters elect businessman and former vice president Enrique Bolanos, now 73, who was imprisoned by the left-wing Sandanista regime in the 1980s and had his assets confiscated.
The Tokyo government angers China and South Korea July 9 by announcing that it will not order further revisions of middle school textbooks that have been criticized for glossing over atrocities committed by Japanese occupation troops in Korea from 1910 to 1945 and in China from the 1930s to 1945, including such practices as sexual slavery.
The USA PATRIOT Act approved by Congress October 25 bends the Bill of Rights by authorizing the attorney general to detain an alien for 7 days without charging the individual with any offense if he has "reasonable grounds" for suspecting the alien is aiding terrorism and then to hold the person for 6 months should he or she be charged with any crime, even unrelated. Former Missouri governor and U.S. senator John Ashcroft, now 58, has won Senate approval as President Bush's attorney general February 1 by a vote of 58 to 42, the narrowest vote since the confirmation of Ed Meese in 1981. The religious right has supported Ashcroft's nomination, but his record on civil rights, environmental protection, gun control, and reproductive rights has aroused strong opposition. The bill sent to Congress by the Bush administration September 18 allowed indefinite detention of individuals when the Justice Department said it had "reason to believe" (rather than "reasonable grounds") they might be involved in terrorism, called for use against U.S. citizens in U.S. courts of information obtained abroad through wiretaps that would be unconstitutional in America, and permitted freezing of all assets of suspects even before they were tried (see politics [Quirin decision], 1942). Congress has not held hearings or debated the legislation but has deleted some of the harsher provisions, only one senator (Russ Feingold) and 66 House members have opposed Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism, but the hastily drawn up measure allows the FBI to share information on domestic criminal investigations with the CIA in violation of the CIA's charter, whose provisions bar the CIA from domestic spying, and it comes under attack from right-wing critics as well as liberals; many compare it to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, some note that it violates the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments, they call it the Constitution Shredding Act, and the Bush administration will back off implementing some of its provisions next year (but see Domestic Security Enhancement Act, 2003).
Attorney General Ashcroft issues orders November 9 to round up some 5,000 people for questioning in connection with possible terrorist plots, most are immigrants from the Middle East, many are U.S. citizens, and police chiefs around the country balk at compliance (more than 1,000 people have been detained for weeks without having had any charges filed against them); President Bush signs a military order November 13 authorizing Secretary of Defense Rumsfield to detain anyone whom the president has "reason to believe" is or was a member of the Taliban or al Qaeda, or has aided or abetted an act of international terrorism, or has harbored one or more such individuals, and to detain such suspects indefinitely without due process of law, allowing special military tribunals to try non-citizens. The administration justifies the new repression by saying that the country is at war (although Congress has never declared war); Britain, Germany, Spain, and other countries refuse to extradite suspects if they are to face secret trials and possible death penalties, saying that it would violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of Man adopted by the United Nations late in 1948; civil libertarians object to violating the Sixth Amendment, and while Ashcroft and President Bush insist that the president is not exceeding his authority they suggest November 28 that detainees will improve their chances of obtaining citizenship if they provide information leading to the arrest of terrorists. The government uses its sweeping new powers to arrest "suspects" at home and abroad, even if incommunicado at Guantánamo, Cuba, where they will be subjected to treatment that clearly violates the rules of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, but the Bush administration insists that those rules do not apply to terrorists (see 2002).
Men in Kabul celebrate in November by having their beards shaved off and flying kites, music is heard once again in the capital after 5 years of Taliban repression, some women begin to appear without their faces covered, and some return to school and university. Western powers insist that women must play prominent roles in Afghanistan's society as they did before the Taliban took over in 1996, when a large percentage of physicians, students, and government officials were women.
A controversial tax bill signed into law by President Bush June 7 echoes 1981 legislation, cutting income taxes by $1.3 trillion over the next 10 years, phasing out estate taxes and providing for almost immediate disbursement of checks to ordinary taxpayers, but making it difficult to fund federal programs supposedly favored by both parties. It soon becomes apparent that federal revenues will fall far short of expectations. The Bush administration releases projections August 22 that for the current fiscal year the government will run a surplus of only about $600 million outside of Social Security, down from the $122 billion estimated in April; President Bush tells reporters at his Texas ranch August 24 that the lower surplus projection is "incredibly positive news" because it will create "a fiscal straitjacket for Congress" and stop the growth of the federal government, but the country will soon be running a deficit rather than a surplus; critics warn that money is lacking for military appropriations, that revenue shortfalls will force cutbacks in education, health care, police protection, and other services, and that lower taxes will soon put funding of Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare in jeopardy (see 2002).
Some 100,000 opponents of globalization demonstrate at Genoa in a more violent continuation of the movement that tried to shut down Seattle in December 1999; police kill agitator Carlos Giuliani July 19 as protests against the G-8, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, and other multinational institutions escalate. Environmental groups and labor unions generally reject use of weapons and violent confrontations, responsible business leaders and most of the press dismiss the demonstrations as expressions of neo-Luddite anarchism, noting that global poverty has actually decreased. While economic growth has slowed in most countries, it has grown in China and India, home to more than half the world's poor. Some reputable economists break ranks with their peers, however, and recognize that there is some legitimacy to the protests (see Nonfiction, 2002).
The Bush administration acts August 22 to support an International Monetary Fund proposal to provide $8 billion in new loans to Argentina on top of a $13.7 billion loan package provided in January. The IMF plan includes putting pressure on private lenders to help Buenos Aires reschedule some loans, but the IMF has loaned Argentina $18 billion since 1999, the money has gone mostly to servicing the South American country's external debt rather than to helping it expand its export trade, President Fernando de la Rua has been unable to push through budget cuts promised as a condition for another IMF loan, and the Monetary Fund announces December 5 that no more loans will be forthcoming but that it will work with the Argentine government to develop an acceptable economic program that will trigger release of $10 billion in previously approved loans. Outstanding loans to foreign banks and bondholders total $135 billion, and the bonds have been trading at 20 to 35 cents on the dollar; economic minister Domingo Cavallo, now 55, resigned last year, having guided the nation's policy of deregulation and privatization; he designed the Convertibility Plan that tied the peso to the U.S. dollar on a one-to-one basis, and he resigns again in December as Argentina defaults on her $155 billion debt, the largest in the world. The banks and bondholders will have to accept lower rates and longer repayment terms, and the peso will be devalued, either by being allowed to float freely or by being pegged to the dollar at a lower exchange rate (see 2002).
The World Trade Organization (WTO) admits both the People's Republic of China and Taiwan in ceremonies in Qatar November 10 and 11, bringing membership to 144 countries (see 2000). Delegates from the other 142 countries then agree after years of wrangling to begin a new round of trade talks intended to keep the global economy on track toward freer trade and investment.
The worldwide recession brings demands that Congress support a stimulus package that would revive the flagging U.S. economy. Opposition to government spending dwindles after September 11 as Americans of all political stripes turn to the federal government for solutions, but a Bush administration plan based on accelerated (and permanent) tax cuts draws criticism that it includes elimination of capital-gains taxes and that most of the income tax reductions will benefit the rich, providing no quick stimulus to the economy. Some economists urge repeal of the legislation signed June 7 to minimize deficit financing of new needs for government action.
U.S. exchanges do not open September 11 following the attack on the World Trade Center and remain closed until September 17, the first such shutdown since the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at a new low for the year September 17, falling a record 684 points (7.1 percent) to 8920, despite a cut in the fed funds rate from 3.5 percent to 3 percent. Heavy selling continues all week, and by Friday's close the Dow has sustained its worst one-week fall since July 1933, dropping 14.26 percent and losing $1.4 trillion in value.
Bethlehem Steel Corp. files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection October 15 as the third-largest U.S. steel producer struggles with cheap foreign imports plus high labor and retiree costs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 31 at 10021.50, down from 10876.84 at the end of 2000. The NASDAQ closes at 1950.40.
Marks & Spencer puts its money-losing Brooks Brothers store chain up for sale in March, having paid $750 million for it in 1988. The Italian-controlled Retail Brand Alliance Inc. agrees in November to buy the chain for about $225 million.
Retailers worldwide report lower sales as a business recession combines with concerns about travel and war in Afghanistan to put a damper on consumer demand, but U.S. retail sales in December are off only slightly from 2000 levels.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) reimposes regulation on California utilities June 19 after electricity rates have spiked in much of the state under deregulation.
Houston-based Enron Corp. chairman Kenneth L. Lay sells stock in the company every day through July to repay loans he has received from Enron (see commerce, 1997). CEO Jeff Skilling, 46, resigns August 14 "for personal reasons" as the company's Broadband division reports losses of $137 million and Lay takes over as CEO. Originally a natural-gas pipeline company, Enron has become an on-line power trader, reshaping the way natural gas and electricity are bought and sold, and a trader in many other things; it reveals August 16 that it has taken a $1.6 billion hit to shareholder equity related to its partnerships; on November 8 it files a disclosure document with the Securities and Exchange Commission acknowledging that it overstated its net income by 20 percent beginning in 1997 and has massive off-balance-sheet liabilities. Enron's stock plummets; its employees' 401k plans are left with virtually nothing and many have no other retirement savings (see 2002).
France establishes the government-owned Groupe Areva to control the nation's nuclear reactors and handle recycling of nuclear waste. Created by a merger of Cogema S.A., Framatome ANP, and some other entities, Areva's electronics division is the world's third largest player in telecommunication connectors but three-fourths of its revenue comes from nuclear energy, and it will soon be the world's largest nuclear-energy company, with 50,000 employees worldwide and a mission to promote nuclear power as the only way to increase energy production without damaging the environment.
A Vladivostok Avia Co. Tupolev-154 en route from Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains crashes outside Irkutsk in Siberia July 3, killing all 143 aboard; the death toll of passengers and crew on the hijacked American and United Airlines planes September 11 is 266, including the 19 hijackers.
Commercial and general (private) U.S. air traffic is suspended September 11 but 140 Saudis are permitted to fly out of the country, including members of the bin Laden family. Flights from abroad are diverted to Canadian airports, and when domestic flights resume a few days later there is heightened security, along with demands that airliner cockpits be sealed off from passenger areas, that pilots be allowed to carry firearms, and that the federal government assume responsibility for airport security. The airlines have lost $1 billion since the first of the year, security at U.S. airports has been lax, the events of September 11 frighten away prospective passengers, and Congress votes September 21 to approve a $15 billion bailout package that will keep the airline industry viable (the Senate vote is 96 to 1, the House vote 356 to 54).
A 12-seat Cessna collides with an SAS McDonnell-Douglas 87 reaching takeoff speed on a runway at Milan's Linate Airport October 8, killing 118; American Airlines Flight 587 takes off from JFK for Santo Domingo at 9:14 in the morning November 12 and crashes 3 minutes later into the Belle Harbor residential neighborhood of Queens five miles from JFK, killing all 251 passengers and nine crew members aboard the A300 Airbus plus five people on the ground. Most of the passengers are Dominicans who had lived in Washington Heights, that community is devastated, and while the accident is not related to terrorism it strikes a heavy blow to the Rockaway community that lost many men in the World Trade Center collapse 2 months earlier. It is the worst such disaster since a United Airlines jet fell on Park Slope, Brooklyn, in 1960 and takes far more lives.
Air France and British Airways resume supersonic transatlantic flights in November after a 15-month hiatus, charging $5,500 for a one-way ticket on the Concorde (see 2003).
Container ship pioneer Malcom McLean dies of heart failure at his New York home May 25 at age 87, having seen containerization come into almost universal use in barge, rail, and truck transportation as well as on the high seas.
Britain's P&O Princess Cruises and Miami-based Royal Caribbean Cruises announce at London November 20 that they will merge in a $2.89 billion deal that will overtake Miami-based Carnival to create the world's largest cruise-ship company, with 41 ships, 75,000 berths under joint management. The travel industry remains in turmoil as a result of recession and terrorism.
Hyundai Group founder Chung Ju Yung dies at Seoul March 21 at age 85.
Bridgestone's Bridgestone/Firestone division announces May 21 that it will end its 95-year-old relationship with Ford Motor Company, blaming Ford for many of the fatal Explorer accidents that Ford has blamed on faulty tires.
The last Plymouth automobile rolls off the Chrysler assembly line at Belvedere, Ill., June 28. Sales of Plymouths peaked in 1973, efforts to reinvigorate the make in the face of foreign competition have failed, Chrysler lost $2 billion in the second half of last year and this year loses another $2 billion, Ford loses $5.5 billion (see 2002). Passenger cars made by Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors have only 47 percent of the U.S. market, down from 64 percent in 1994, Detroit loses money on every such car sold, sales of high-profit sport utility vehicles (SUVs) enabled the "Big Three" to show combined profits of $19 billion in 1999, but Honda and Nissan factories can produce a passenger car in 31 hours (it takes Ford 42), imported cars have higher resale values, union opposition makes it hard for the company to abandon unprofitable lines, and industry analysts predict that profits on domestic SUVs will soon be cut in half.
Rental-car companies suffer large losses as air passenger travel drops off even before the September 11 terrorist events; some of the companies lobby for federal loan guarantees, but industry giants Hertz, Avis, and Enterprise oppose such guarantees in hopes of driving out competitors such as Alamo, Budget, Dollar, and National.
A truck collision in Switzerland's 10.6-mile-long St. Gotthard Tunnel October 24 sets off a fire that kills at least 11 people; another 128 are still missing 24 hours later, the Mont Blanc Tunnel that was closed by a fire in March 1999 is not scheduled to reopen until later in the year, some 5,000 trucks per day have been using the St. Gotthard Tunnel, and the disruption in traffic (75 percent of all freight within the European Union moves by road) cuts Italy off from France and the rest of Europe.
Computer pioneer William R. Hewlett dies at his Palo Alto, Calif., home January 16 at age 87.
A federal appeals court rules June 28 that Microsoft is a monopoly but overturns last year's ruling by Judge Penfield Jackson that the company must be broken up. Bill Gates hails the decision as a victory for Microsoft's right to design its products as it sees fit, but the court has ruled that while the company's practice of "bundling" certain software into its operating system "obviously saves distribution and consumer transaction costs" it is clearly anticompetitive in at least two important aspects, notably folding its browser into Windows. The Bush administration announces September 6 that it will give up its efforts to break up Microsoft and seek a far less drastic resolution but will continue to go after the company for anticompetitive practices such as intimidation.
Nobel physicist Clifford G. Shull dies at Medford, Mass., March 31 at age 85.
President Bush gives a prime-time television address August 9 to announce that he has agreed to permit federal financing of embryonic stem-cell research but only with limitations that do not appease fervent opponents and displease researchers, who say their inability to create new lines of embryonic cells will handicap their efforts to find potential treatments for Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, spinal-cord injuries, and other devastating conditions. Only tiny amounts of adult stem cells exist in the body, they are hard to isolate, and it is almost impossible to grow them outside the body, whereas embryonic stem cells can become almost any type of cell or tissue, and they are self-renewing in the laboratory as well as in the body. The House of Representatives has rejected a plan that would allow human cloning for research purposes but not for reproductive purposes and voted 265 to 178 July 31 to ban all human cloning, whatever its goal; the Senate has not acted on the issue. Of those Americans who participate in polls, most approve the president's decision, privately funded U.S. researchers proceed with their work, as do foreign researchers, but nobody knows how many lines of embryonic cells really exist (Bush suggested that there were 60) or how long they will last. Critics say that lack of federal funding will disrupt work on promising research, and that foreign companies will now take the lead in such work. Bush appoints a council headed by University of Chicago bioethicist Leon R. Kass, 62, to explore the implications of stem-cell research, but the president's equivocation leaves many observers troubled.
Worcester, Mass.-based Advanced Cell Technology Inc. (ACT) announces on the Internet November 25 that it has produced human embryonic cells, raising hopes that differentiated tissue can be produced that will be tailored to specific medical problems, Bush condemns the development, ACT denies that it has any plans to clone humans, none of ACT's "therapeutic" clones actually developed beyond the six-cell stage, and scientists say it has made an advance in laboratory technique rather than a scientific breakthrough.
The Food and Drug Administration gives approval May 10 to a new anti-cancer drug after a 2½-month review of clinical data that breaks all records for speed (the usual time is about 6 months). Used to treat 54 patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (one of the four chief types of leukemia), the Novartis drug Gleevec lowered blood counts to normal in more than 90 percent of cases and cancerous cells to disappear in 13 percent, generally with few side effects.
A French parliamentary committee issues a report May 17 sharply critical of agricultural officials' handling of mad cow disease in the past 10 years. Neurological researcher Joe Gibbs has died of a heart attack at his native Washington, D.C., February 16 at age 76. To appease a powerful cattle industry, says the report, the French officials "repeatedly sought to prevent or delay the adoption of precautionary measures—that later proved necessary for health safety—on grounds that there was no scientific basis for them." The report also takes Britain to task for "shamelessly" authorizing exports of meat and bone meal even after concluding that such feed components played an important role in transmitting the disease.
A pill-size capsule camera gains Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approval for use in endoscopy. Invented by Israeli missile engineer Gavriel J. Iddan using light-sensing technology developed for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the pill measures 11 millimeters by 30, is easily swallowed with a sip of water and contains a tiny video camera, a light source, and a transmitter. In its 24-hour trip through the digestive tract (including about 22 feet of small intestine), it transmits up to 6 hours of high-quality images; Royal London Hospital gastroenterologist Paul Swain has tested it on volunteers and reported his findings in Nature magazine, he and Iddan have tried it themselves, and although it cannot explore the biliary system or provide tissue samples for biopsy some enthusiasts predict that it will revolutionize endoscopy.
Lead-poison crusader J. Julian Chisolm dies of congestive heart failure at a Baltimore retirement community June 20 at age 79; rubella (German measles) vaccine co-developer Harry Martin Meyer Jr. of T-cell lymphoma at Kenmore, Wash., August 17 at age 72; heart-transplant pioneer Christiaan Barnard of an asthma attack after swimming at a resort in Cyprus September 2 at age 78.
The first fully implantable artificial heart extends the life of a 59-year-old diabetic man with a life expectancy of only 30 days (see Jarvik, 1982). Physicians at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Ky., remove most of Robert Tools's diseased heart July 3 and install the battery-powered device July 3, attaching it to what remains of his left and right atria and his aorta; made by Abiomed of Danvers, Mass., it has no wires or tubes extending through the skin, an external battery pack recharges its internal batteries, the patient responds well initially (he dies of internal bleeding in early December), but critics warn that while 4,231 patients are on the heart-transplant list every year, and only 2,000 human hearts are available, an estimated 125,000 are candidates for artificial hearts, and providing those devices would cost at least $10 billion while some 40 million Americans have no health insurance.
President Bush announces in January that he is establishing a White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (see 1996). He shrugs off complaints that the office violates the First Amendment's Establishment Clause separating Church and State, and that his "determined attack on need" does not have clear enough protections against proselytizing by religious organizations and discrimination in hiring. Bush authorizes faith-based initiatives in five Cabinet offices; the list will soon be expanded to include the departments of Justice, Agriculture, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Education, and the Agency for International Development, but although the initiatives will funnel federal money into Christian charities and schools they will exclude Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic and Jewish organizations.
Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar issues an order in May against non-Islamic graven images, and Afghan forces use explosives, tanks, and anti-aircraft fire to destroy two colossal statues of the Buddha 150 miles (230 kilometers) from Kabul in Bamiyan Province. Cut from sandstone cliffs, the statues have stood probably since the 3rd and 5th centuries in the mountain valley separating the Hindu Kush from Koh-i-Baba, one rising 175 feet (53 meters), the other 120 feet (36 meters), with copper faces and copper-covered hands. Buddhists have visited the place for centuries, and the "Bamiyan Massacre" draws worldwide condemnation.
Muslim religious fanatics exult in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, most Muslim leaders condemn the attacks and cite the Koran's promise of eternal punishment for those who kill innocent people, but evangelical Christian leader Rev. Jerry Falwell appears on Pat Robertson's 700 Club television show September 13 and says, "What we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be miniscule if, in fact, God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve." Robertson agrees, whereupon Falwell continues, "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God really mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'" Robertson says, "I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted the agenda at the highest levels of our government." President Bush calls Falwell's remarks merely "inappropriate," blunders August 16 by asking for a "crusade" against Muslim terrorists, but visits a mosque and urges Americans to respect their peace-loving Muslim fellow-citizens.
President Bush's nominee for secretary of education wins Senate approval in January despite questions about his record as superintendent of Houston's school district. Mississippi-born educator Roderick "Rod" Paige, 67, was appointed superintendent in 1994, angering many Hispanics whose children represent a majority in the district's failing public schools. Paige reached out to the Latino population with construction, new playing fields, and other programs, clamped down on school violence and automatic promotion, used business models to reward effective teachers, and has been credited with raising test scores and reducing drop-out rates (but see 2002).
Cliffs Notes creator Clifton Hillegass suffers a stroke in late April and dies at his Lincoln, Neb., home May 5 at age 83.
Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf unveils a law in June designed to check extremism in Muslim religious schools whose students are taught to believe that jihad is part of life. Funded by religious fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates, the madrasas have been linked to terrorism. The United States and other countries have encouraged Musharraf to take action against them, his law would provide funding of teachers and textbooks for a voluntary expansion of instruction in areas such as mathemamtics, science, and English, but Islamic leaders accuse Musharraf of buckling under pressure from the Bush administration, and a Brussels-based nonprofit organization specializing in conflict resolution describes Musharraf's proposals as "cosmetic measures" aimed at appeasing the White House (see 2003).
Saudi Arabian money pours into schools that indoctrinate students with anti-Western ideology throughout the Muslim world. Neither the United States nor any other Western nation takes any action to discourage proliferation of the madrasas, whose students are given extreme and militant interpretations of the Koran, encouraged to hate non-believers in Islam, but provided with little education that will help them in the modern world. While Arabs represent 5 percent of the world's population they produce only 1.1 percent of the world's books, and while they publish more than three times the average number of religious books they produce few artistic or literary works (see 2002).
Some 350,000 Canadian college students begin classes in the fall with loans averaging $25,000, up from $8,690 in 1991 (see Canadian Student Loans Program, 1964). Tuitions have climbed by 125 percent in 10 years.
The U.S. first-class postal rate goes to 34¢ January 7 but will remain at that level for less than 18 months.
President Bush appoints Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's 37-year-old son Michael K. chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The Birmingham, Ala.-born Powell has served as a commissioner since 1997 and will strongly support deregulation of telecommunications in the next 4 years while at the same time back unprecedented penalties for broadcast indecency.
Telecommunications pioneer Claude Shannon dies of Alzheimer's disease complications at Medford, Mass., February 24 at age 84, having created the system of binary code ("bits") used in electronic communication and established the theoretical groundwork for digital communication.
The Week magazine begins publication at New York April 13 under the direction of Felix Dennis, now 53, who limits advertising to six pages of the 40-page news digest and projects a circulation of 400,000 (seeMaxim, 1995). Started at London 6 years ago by former Times editor Jolyon Connell, the weekly gained 65,000 subscribers but lost a fortune until Dennis bought it and made it profitable.
Mademoiselle magazine ceases publication with its November issue after 66 years as Condé Nast responds to lower advertising revenues.
Journalist Tad Szulc dies of cancer at Washington, D.C., May 21 at age 74; cartoonist Hank Ketcham of "Dennis the Menace" fame at his Carmel, Calif., home June 1 at age 81; former Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham suffers head injuries when she falls on a sidewalk while attending a conference of media executives at Sun Valley, Idaho, July 14 and dies at Boise July 17 at age 84 without having regained consciousness. Her son Donald, now 56, became publisher in 1979 and has been CEO since 1991; longtime Washington Post political cartoonist Herblock (Herbert Block) dies of pneumonia at Washington October 7 at age 91 (the stock that was almost worthless when he received it from the Post's late publisher Eugene Meyer in lieu of more salary has appreciated in value to about $50 million).
Executive Order 13223 signed by President Bush November 1 allows a sitting president to keep secret the papers of a previous president, even if his predecessor wants the papers made public. The White House since January has three times blocked releasing 68,000 pages of Reagan administration documents, the first such papers scheduled for release under terms of the 1978 Presidential Records Act requiring such action 12 years after a president's term expires. Aides say the order will provide an "orderly process" to help archivists handle requests for presidential papers, but critics suggest that Bush may want to keep Ronald Reagan's papers from being published lest they expose potentially embarrassing information about his budget director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr.; White House economist Lawrence B. Lindsey; Secretary of State Colin L. Powell; or former president George H. W. Bush's possible involvement in the 1980s Iran-Contra affair. Historians file suit to overturn the executive order, and the administration will release 7,000 pages of Reagan papers in January of next year.
Wikipedia goes online as a free collaborative encyclopedia with contributions from users who are cautioned to be politically neutral. Huntsville, Ala.-born Internet entrepreneur Jimmy (Donal) Wales, 35, and Bellevue, Wash.-born Ohio State philosophy lecturer Larry Sanger, 33, have founded the enterprise and will receive help from users worldwide to build the information source.
Nonfiction: Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Fairfax, Va.-born Equus magazine contributing editor Laura Hillenbrand, 34 (see sports, 1938); Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry by Michael Ignatieff; The Best of Times: America in the Clinton Years by Haynes Johnson; War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals by David Halberstam; Staying Tuned by veteran broadcast journalist Daniel Schorr, now 85, who still practices his craft brilliantly for National Public Radio; Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distorts the News by New York-born journalist Bernard Goldberg, 56, who worked for the network for 28 years, receives a pension from CBS, and claims that "conservatives" do not receive a fair shake from the mainstream media; Global Political Economy by Princeton economist Robert Gilpin, who questions claims that globalization is inevitable and will lead to the retreat of the nation-state, showing rather that the world was more globalized before World War I and that today's globalization actually represents the formation of trade blocs such as the European Union and NAFTA; The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester is about the 19th-century geologist William Smith; April 1865: The Month that Saved America by New Haven, Conn.-born political scientist Jay B. Winik, 44; Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting by in Boom-Time America by Barbara Ehrenreich, who has worked for nearly a year as a waitress, housemaid, and Wal-Mart clerk in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota, respectively, to gain an understanding of how the working poor try to survive; Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Middle Class and How They Got There by National Review editor David Brooks.
Historian Sir Richard W. Southern dies at his Oxford home February 6 at age 88; author-aviator Anne Morrow Lindbergh at her Passumsic, Vt., home February 7 at age 94; journalist-author Rowland Evans Jr. at Washington, D.C., March 23, at age 79; elections analyst Richard M. Scammon of Alzheimer's disease at a Gaithersburg, Md., retirement community April 27 at age 85; historian J. C. Furnas at Stanton, N.J., June 3 at age 95; philosopher-educator Mortimer Adler at his San Mateo, Calif., home June 28 at age 98; historian A. G. Dickens at London July 31 at age 91; author Peter Maas at New York August 23 at age 72; historian Sir J. H. Plumb at Cambridge October 21 at age 90; author E. H. Gombrich at London November 3 at age 92.
Fiction: Half a Life by V. S. Naipaul (who wins the Nobel prize for literature); The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa; Adios Muchachos by Uruguayan-born University of Havana classics professor and novelist Daniel Chavarria, 68, who came to Cuba in 1969 and writes of prostitutes; Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald; Border Crossing by Pat Barker; The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen; Empire Falls by Richard Russo; The Peppered Moth by Margaret Drabble; Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (stories) by Alice Munro; Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler.
Science-fiction novelist Gordon R. Dickson dies of asthma complications at Minneapolis January 31 at age 77; suspense novelist Robert Ludlum of an apparent heart attack at Naples, Fla., March 12 at age 73; Douglas Adams of an apparent heart attack at Santa Barbara, Calif., May 11 at age 49; R. K. Narayan at his native Madras May 13 at age 94; Frank G. Slaughter at Jacksonville, Fla., May 17 at age 93; Mordecai Richler of kidney cancer at his native Montreal July 3 at age 70; short-story writer and novelist Eudora Welty outside her native Jackson, Miss., July 23 at age 92; science-fiction novelist Poul Anderson of cancer at his Orinda, Calif., home July 31 at age 74, having published more than 100 novels and collections; novelist Robert H. Rimmer dies at his Quincy, Mass., home August 1 at age 84; Dorothy Dunnett at Edinburgh November 9 at age 78; Ken Kesey of liver cancer at Eugene, Ore., November 10 at age 66; John Knowles at a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., suburb November 29 at age 75; W. G. Sebald in an auto accident near his Norwalk home in East Anglia December 14 at age 57, having swerved into oncoming traffic and hit a truck.
Poetry: Electric Light by Seanus Heaney; Sailing Around the Room: New and Selected Poems by Billy Collins, who is named U.S. poet laureate; The Darkness and the Light by Anthony Hecht, now 78; The Beforelife by Franz Wright; The Seven Ages by Louise Glück, who will succeed Collins as poet laureate in October 2003.
Poet Gregory Corso dies of prostate cancer at Robbinsdale, Minn., January 17 at age 70; Elizabeth Jennings at Bampton, Oxfordshire October 26 at age 75.
Juvenile: The Ersatz Elevator, The Vile Village, and The Hostile Hospital by Lemony Snicket, whose first three books are published under the title A Series of Unfortunate Events, illustrations by Bret Helquist; The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo; Notes from a Liar and Her Dog by Gennifer Choldenko.
Author Elizabeth Yates dies at a Concord, N.H., hospice July 29 at age 95.
Painter Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski) dies at his chalet in La Rossinière outside Gstadd, Switzerland, February 18, at age 92.
Sculpture: Prince of Homburg by Frank Stella, now 64. Sculptor Juan Muñoz dies of a heart attack on the Spanish island of Ibiza August 28 at age 48.
St. Louis gets a new $17 million art museum designed by Japanese architect Tadeo Ando to house the collection of the late newspaper publishing scion Joseph Pulitzer Jr.
Theater: The Shape of Things by Detroit-born film director and playwright Neil LaBute, 38, 5/2 at London's Almeida Theatre, with London-born actress Rachel Weisz, 30, Paul Rudd; Homebody/Kabul by Tony Kushner 12/19 at New York's off-Broadway Lucille Lortel Theater, with Linda Emond.
Former New York Herald Tribune drama critic Otis Guernsey Jr. dies at Woodstock, Vt., May 2 at age 82; playwright Jason Miller of a heart attack at his native Scranton, Pa., May 13 at age 52; playwright John Herbert at his native Toronto June 22 at age 75; circus animal trainer Gunther Gebel-Williams of cancer at his Venice, Fla., home July 19 at age 66; actress Kim Stanley at Santa Fe, N.M., August 20 at age 76; playwright Anthony Shaffer at London November 6 at age 75; actress Eileen Heckart of cancer at her Norwalk, Conn., home December 31 at age 82.
Television: The Office 7/9 on BBC with David Brent as the egomaniacal boss of a paper company in a sitcom created by Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant; The Education of Max Bickford 9/23 on CBS with Richard Dreyfuss (to 6/2/2002); According to Jim 10/3 on ABC with Jim Belushi, Courtney Thorne-Smith; Pop Idol 10/21 on Britain's ITV with Brighton-born personality Simon Cowell, 31, is a "reality" series about a "search" for a new pop music star (seeAmerican Idol, 2002); 24 on Fox with a large cast in a series about an attempted assassination of a presidential nominee.
Radio comedian Sir Harry Secombe of BBC Goon Show fame dies of prostate cancer at Guildford, Surrey, April 11 at age 79; actress and TV panelist Arlene Francis at San Francisco May 31 at age 93; comedienne Imogene Coca at her Westport, Conn., home June 2 at age 92; actor Carroll O'Connor of a heart attack at Culver City, Calif., June 21 at age 76; former radio host Raymond E. Johnson of 1940s Inner Sanctum fame at Wallingford, Conn., August 15 at age 90; actor Sir Nigel Hawthorne of a heart attack at his Hertfordshire home December 26 at age 72.
Films: Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe as schizophrenic Nobel mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr., Alicia Larde; John Moore's Behind Enemy Lines with Owen Wilson, Gene Hackman; Robert Altman's Gosford Park with Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Ryan Philippe; Todd Field's In the Bedroom with Tom Wilkinson, Sissy Spacek; Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love with Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung; Lone Sherfig's Italian for Beginners with Lars Kaalund, Anders W. Berthelsen; Anette Stevelbaek; Mohsen Machmalbaf's documentary Kandahar; Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring; Marc Forster's Monster's Ball with Billy Bob Thornton, Halle Berry, Coronji Calhoun; Pete Docter's Monster's, Inc. with Walt Disney Pixar animation, voices of John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Mary Gibbs, James Coburn; Steven Soderbergh's Oceans Eleven with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Julia Roberts; Vicky Jenson and Andrew Adamson's Shrek with DreamWorks animation, voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, John Lithgow. Also: Jean-Pierre Jaunet's Amélie from Montmartre with Audrey Tautou; Michael Winterbottom's The Claim with Wes Bentley, Milla Jovovich, Natassja Kinski; James Ivory's The Golden Bowl with Uma Thurman, Jeremy Norham, Kate Beckinsale; Chris Columbus's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone with Daniel Radcliffe, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Ian Hart, Richard Harris; Ray Lawrence's Lantana with Anthony LaPaglia; Baz Luhmann's Moulin Rouge with Nicole Kidman; Tom Tykwer's The Princess and the Warrior with Franka Potente, Benno Fürmann.
Only 27 percent of Americans are "frequent moviegoers," according to the Motion Picture Association of America. Sales of video games ($9.6 billion) exceed movie ticket sales ($8.4 billion) for the first time, and 30 percent of Americans never enter a movie theater, as compared to the 55 percent (78 million people) who went to the movies every week in 1946, but Hollywood nevertheless sets financial records and Americans next year will go to the movies more often than at any time since the 1950s.
Actress Dale Evans dies at her Apple Valley, Calif., home February 8 at age 88; director Stanley Kramer of pneumonia at Woodland Hills, Calif., February 19 at age 87; animation pioneer William Hanna of Hanna-Barbera at his North Hollywood, Calif., home March 21 at age 90; director Hiroshi Teshigahara of leukemia at Tokyo April 14 at age 74; actor Anthony Quinn of respiratory failure at Boston June 3 at age 86; Jack Lemmon of cancer at Los Angeles June 27 at age 76; Kim Stanley of cancer at Santa Fe., N.M., August 20 t age 76; Troy Donahue of a heart attack at Los Angeles September 2 at age 65; film critic Pauline Kael at her Great Barrington, Mass., home September 3 at age 82; actress Dorothy McGuire of arrythmia at Santa Monica September 14 at age 83; director Herbert Ross of heart failure at New York October 8 at age 74; animator Faith Hubley of cancer at New Haven, Conn., December 7 at age 77.
Broadway musicals; The Producers 4/19 at the St. James Theater, with Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Cady Huffman, music and lyrics by Mel Brooks, choreography by Susan Stroman (most tickets go for $100 each, and the theater begins in September to offer some at $480 each in an effort to thwart scalpers, who sometimes get upwards of $1,000); Urinetown 9/20 at the Henry Miller Theater, with John Cullum, Nancy Opel, Jeff McCarthy, Spencer Kayden, book by George Kotis, music by Mark Hollman, lyrics by Kotis and Hollman, 965 perfs.
Royal Ballet founder Ninette de Valois dies at her London home March 8 at age 102; former Broadway musical star Maria Karnilova at New York April 20 at age 80; violinist Isaac Stern of heart failure at New York September 21 at age 81.
Popular songs: Reveal (CD) by REM includes "Imitation of Life"; All That You Can't Leave Behind (CD) by U2 includes the single "Walk On" and "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of"; Songs in A Minor (CD) by New York-born songwriter and musical prodigy Alicia Keys, 19, includes the single "Fallin'"; "Drops of Jupiter" by songwriters Charlie Colin, Rob Hotchkiss, Pat Monahan, Jimmy Stafford, and Scott Underwood; Cocky (CD) by Kid Rock (Robert Ritchie); So Addictive (CD) by rap artist Missy Elliott includes the singles "One Minute Man," "Get Ur Freak On," and "4 My People;" Big Boi and Dre Present . . . OutKast (CD) by the Atlanta rap duo includes the single "The Whole World."
Bandleader Les Brown dies at Los Angeles January 4 at age 88; pop singer-songwriter Charles Trenet at the Paris suburb of Creteil February 18 at age 87; pianist-bandleader-composer Frankie Carle at a Mesa, Ariz., hospice March 7 at age 97; California Sound singer-songwriter John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas of heart failure at Los Angeles March 18 at age 65; Modern Jazz Quartet pianist John Lewis at New York March 29 at age 80; singer Perry Como at his Jupiter, Fla., home May 12 at age 88; blues guitarist John Lee Hooker in his sleep at his Los Altos, Calif., home June 21 at age 83; composer-arranger Arthur "Chico" O'Farrill at New York June 27 at age 79; guitarist Chet Atkins of cancer at his Nashville home June 30 at age 77; Bread & Roses founder Mimi Fariña of lung cancer at her Mill Valley, Calif., home July 18 at age 56; mouth organist and political exile Larry Adler at London August 7 at age 87; songwriter Jay Livingston at Los Angeles October 17 at age 86.
The $399 IPod announced by Apple Computer October 23 is a 6½-ounce digital audio player with enough capacity to store more than 1,000 songs, relying on a hard disk for storage instead of flash memory or interchangeable CD-ROMs. Engineer Tony Fadell, 32, designed the device as an outside contractor in 8 weeks before being hired by Apple to organize an implementation team, Apple ships the first IPod November 10, it works only on Macintosh computers, but third-party developers begin writing software that lets it work with PCs, and later IPods will hold as many as 10,000 songs.
Former Beatles guitarist and songwriter George Harrison dies of lung cancer at Los Angeles November 29 at age 58; soul singer Rufus Thomas at Memphis December 15 at age 84; crooner-songwriter Gilbert Bécaud of cancer in his houseboat on the Seine at Paris December 18 at age 74.
The Baltimore Ravens (formerly the Cleveland Browns) win Super Bowl XXXV, defeating the New York Giants 34 to 7 January 28 at Tampa.
North Carolina-born Nascar racing star Dale Earnhardt is killed February 18 at age 49 in a crash of his No. 3 black Chevrolet on the last lap of the Daytona 500 at Daytona Beach, Fla. He has won seven Winston Cup championships and more than $41 million in 25 years.
Olympic athlete-turned-sports announcer Marty Glickman dies at New York January 3 at age 83 of complications following heart surgery; cricket legend Sir Donald Bradman dies of pneumonia at Adelaide, South Australia, February 25 at age 92; Calumet Farm racehorse trainer Jimmy Jones at Maryville, Mo., September 2 at age 94.
Golfer Tiger Woods sinks an 18-foot putt and wins the Masters Tournament at Augusta, Ga., April 8 to complete an unprecedented sweep of four consecutive professional championships (but not the "grand slam" because he lost one of the four last year).
Football (soccer) fans try to force their way into Johannesburg's Ellis Park April 11 during a match between the Kaizer Chiefs and the Orlando Pirates: 43 are crushed to death; Congo police move to break up rioting at an April 30 match at Lubumbashi: at least seven people are killed, 51 seriously injured; fans at Accra's main stadium in Ghana May 9 begin tearing up plastic chairs and throwing chunks onto the field 5 minutes before the end of a match between the Hearts of Oak and the Kumasi Asante Kotokos. Police fire tear gas into the crowd, triggering a stampede that kills more than 100.
Goran Ivanisevic, 29, (Croatia) wins in men's singles at Wimbledon, Venus Williams in women's singles; Lleyton Hewitt, 20, (Australia) in U.S. men's singles, Venus Williams in women's.
The 5-year-old Arizona Diamondbacks win the World Series, defeating the New York Yankees 4 games to 3. Former Cleveland Indians shortstop-manager Lou Boudreau has died of cardiac arrest at Olympia Fields, Ill., August 10 at age 84.
Smiley face creator Harvey Ball dies of liver failure at his native Worcester, Mass., April 12 at age 79.
English designer Jenny Packham, 35, shows a collection at the London Designers Exhibition, having developed a reputation for innovative evening gowns, daywear, and wedding gowns.
Evan-Picone cofounder Joseph Picone dies at his New York home June 23 at age 83; cosmetics billionaire Mary Kay Ash at her Dallas home November 22 at age 83.
The Xbox introduced by Microsoft November 15 challenges Sony and Nintendo for leadership in the video-game console business.
Berlin's colossal new Chancery Building is completed to designs by architect Axel Schultes. Built at a cost of $221 million, it comes under criticism for being too big, too isolated, and too costly for a city whose debts exceed $30 billion and must pay $5 million per day on interest alone.
The 101-story Taipei 101 skyscraper completed April 20 at Taiwan's capital rises 1,607 feet (508 meters) and will remain the world's tallest building for some years.
Hotels suffer major losses worldwide as the economic recession combines with fear of flying in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks to reduce travel.
A tanker runs aground on a reef in the Galápagos Islands January 23, threatening marine life on the islands with a spill of more than 150,000 gallons of diesel and bunker fuel.
An earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale rocks northwestern India, southern Pakistan, and Nepal January 26, killing 20,005 in the Gujarat city of Ahmedabad, injuring 166,812, and leaving 600,000 homeless. Critics blame the collapse of many buildings on shoddy construction.
The worst recorded infestation of Canadian timber by the indigenous mountain pine bark beetle wreaks havoc on British Columbian timberlands, carrying a fungus that destroys billions of dollars worth of trees and creates conditions that make forests vulnerable to fire. Severe winters usually kill off the beetles, but 90 percent have survived the mild winter and removing dead trees in rugged terrain poses formidable economic challenges (see 2004).
The new Bush administration delays implementation of a Clinton administration rule prohibiting most commercial logging and road building in 58.5 million acres of national forests (see 1976; 2003). Bush breaks a campaign promise March 13 by saying that he will not regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. His administration rejects the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on global warming a few days later (see 2002), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issues an order March 20 suspending an order by former president Clinton that required a lowering of arsenic in drinking water to 10 parts per billion by 2006. The EPA has for decades set 50 parts per billion as an acceptable standard. Critics say the new administration is more sympathetic to the chemical, mining, timber, and utilities industries than to consumers, EPA administrator Christie Todd Whitman orders a review of the data, and a report issued September 10 by the National Academy of Sciences says arsenic in drinking water poses such an increased risk of causing cancer that a standard of 10 parts per billion may be too high.
The sequencing of the genetic code for rice announced January 26 creates the possibility of new improvements in the staple food for half the world's population. The Swiss-based agricultural chemical and seed company Syngenta and the Utah-based biotechnology company Myriad Genetics make the announcement.
The detection of foot-and-mouth disease on an English farm February 19 leads to a devastating destruction of cattle and sheep throughout the British Isles and on the Continent as the epidemic spreads despite efforts to contain it. Animal raisers who have been damaged by fears of mad-cow disease suffer enormously, as do tourism and other industries.
U.S. hog farmers raise nearly 60 million pigs, up from 52 million in 1985, but the number of hog farms has fallen below 82,000, down from 388,000 in 1985, when a Pork Act adopted by Congress obliged pig raisers to kick in 40¢ per $100 in sales for support of a national marketing program. The National Pork Producers Council has administered a checkoff system to fund advertising under the slogan, "The other white meat," but smaller producers say the slogan misrepresents the meat they raise and a federal district court will rule in October of next year that the checkoff system is unconstitutional.
Oregon farmers in the Klamath River basin seize irrigation headgates after Bureau of Reclamation agents curtail water deliveries to protect endangered coho salmon and a similarly endangered Upper Klamath Lake sucker fish. The basin straddles the California-Oregon border, about 1,600 farmers cultivate some 200,000 acres, and their action produces a confrontation with commercial fishermen and native tribes who depend on the salmon for their livelihoods (see marine resources [fish die-off], 2002).
Television commercials for Smirnoff Vodka air on NBC in late December as British-based Diageo PLC breaks the decades-old taboo against advertising spirits on U.S. broadcast networks.
The U.S. Immigration and Nationalization Services announces in late May that it will start charging foreign athletes, corporate executives, and scientists an extra $1,000 each to speed the processing of their temporary work visas.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules 5 to 4 June 25 that immigrants may challenge the Immigration and Naturalization Service (Calcano-Martinez v. Immigration and Naturalization Service [INS]). Attorney General Ashcroft has argued that the 1996 law stripped federal courts of their powers to review such cases and that the laws could be applied retroactively, but Justice John Paul Stevens says in his majority opinion that legal immigrants who pleaded guilty under the old law "almost certainly relied" on their right to a court review in deciding whether to forgo their right to a trial. Chief Justice Rehnquist joins with Justices Scalia and Thomas in Justice O'Connor's dissenting opinion.
Anthropology
Meave Leakey and coworkers discover the fossil from about 3,500,000 years bce of a previously unknown hominid, which they name Kenyanthropus platyops ("flat faced man from Kenya").
In Ethiopia Yohannes Haile-Selassie [b. Adigrat, Tigray, Ethiopia, February 23, 1961] discovers the fossil of a forest-dwelling subspecies of Ardipithecus ramidus that lived 5,800,000 years bp, the earliest hominid discovered to this date. The subspecies is named Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba, a name based on words from the local language of the Afar region -- Ardi meaning floor, ramidus root, and kadabba oldest ancestor (pithecus is derived from the Greek for ape). See also 1997 Anthropology.
Archaeology
Timothy Heaton discovers a bone tool in a cave on Prince William Island off the coast of Alaska that is carbon-14 dated at 10,300 bce, establishing a human presence along the coast. This, along with a skeleton found in the same cave in 1997 and dated at 9200 years bce, suggests that a seafaring people were traveling along the west coast of North America during this period. See also 2003 Archaeology.
Despite closing Lascaux Cave to visitors in 1963 and using formaldehyde to prevent the growth of a green alga that was covering the famous cave paintings, the paintings begin to suffer a new invader in June of this year -- a fungus this time, Fusarium solani. Although a fungicide slows its growth, the fungus is infected with a bacterium, Pseudomona fluorscens, which also causes damage and which must be attacked with an antibiotic. Getting this problem under control leads to other invasions of similar combinations. Scientists will get the fungus under control by March 2003. See also 1963 Anthropology.
Astronomy
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observes the atmosphere of the exoplanet HD 209484b as the planet passes in front of its star. It is the first direct observation of an extrasolar planet; HD 209484b, which is about 0.7 the mass of Jupiter, had been originally detected by the change in position of the star as the planet orbited in an orbit one-eighth the distance from the star as Mercury is from the Sun. The observations by HST revealed trace elements of sodium in the atmosphere. See also 2002 Astronomy.
Geoffrey Marcy and R. Paul Butler announce the discovery of an extrasolar planet slightly smaller than Jupiter orbiting star HD 4028 at a distance about equal to that of Mars about the Sun, suggesting a system of planets similar to the solar system might exist about HD 4028.
Timothy Beers [b. Lafayette, Indiana, June 24, 1957] of Michigan State University and coworkers use uranium-238 to establish the ages of the oldest stars in the universe. They determine that these stars are 12,500,000,000 years old (with an uncertainty of 3,000,000,000 years), which provides a minimum age for the universe, which must be older than the oldest stars.
American astronomer Robert Millis announces the discovery of a Kuiper belt object larger than Ceres. Initially named 2001KX76, its diameter is 1200 km (750 mi) and its distance when discovered is 6,500,000,000 km (4,000,000,000 mi). See also 1801 Astronomy; 2003 Astronomy.
The orbit of Comet 200 CR-105 is calculated and found to be distorted as if by the presence of a planet larger than Pluto orbiting far beyond Neptune, now or at some time in the distant past. One possibility is that the planet could actually have been Neptune if Neptune previously had an orbit farther from the Sun. See also 1930 Astronomy.
Shoemaker Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR Shoemaker), after orbiting and studying the asteroid 433 Eros for a full Earth year, nears the end of its operational fuel. The probe's operators bring it closer and closer to the asteroid, finally landing on it on the asteroid on February 12 -- the first object from Earth to land on an asteroid. See also 2000 Astronomy.
On April 7 the United States launches Mars Odyssey, which enters orbit about the Red Planet on October 23. Its primary mission will be to search for water.
On June 30 the United States launches the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP), which will measure temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background with unprecedented precision. It goes into solar orbit at the L2 Lagrangian point, which keeps it 1,600,000 km (1,000,000 mi) from Earth. Data from this mission will help determine when galaxies formed and also the ratios of observable mass to dark matter to dark energy in the universe. See also 1995 Astronomy.
On August 8 the United States launches Genesis, which will spend three years orbiting the Sun, collecting particles of the solar wind. It will then return the material to Earth.
Biology
Researchers discover that the common mineral calcite (calcium carbonate) tends to segregate left-handed amino acids on one face and right-handed ones on another, suggesting a possible origin for amino acids in living organisms, all of which are left-handed. Similarly, the handedness of amino acids affects crystal formation in calcite.
The United States experiences its first apparent bioterrorism attack. Letters containing finely milled spores of the anthrax bacteria Bacillus anthracis are mailed, resulting in five deaths.
Researchers studying the draft of the human genome conclude that humans have only about 30,000 genes, far fewer than the 100,000 to 200,000 genes expected before the genome was mapped and not many more than in the nematode C. elegans. See also 2000 Biology; 2003 Biology.
Scientists in Kenya and at the U.S. National Cancer Institute show that genetic differences are so large between Africa's savanna elephants and forest elephants that they are different species.
A cat is cloned for the first time at Texas A&M; University.
Leland H. Hartwell [b. Los Angeles, California, October 30, 1939], R. Timothy Hunt [b. Neston in the Wirral, England, February 19, 1943], and Paul M. Nurse [b. London, January 25, 1949] are awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their discoveries about the cell cycle, the process by which cells grow and divide.
Chemistry
Jun Akimitsu of Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo and coworkers discover that the common compound magnesium diboride is a superconductor at temperatures as high as 39 K (-234°C, or -389°F), considerably higher than that of other simple materials (although not as high as some of the complex ceramics). See also 1986 Physics.
William S. Knowles [b. Taunton, Massachusetts, June 1, 1917], Ryoji Noyori [b. Kobe, Japan, September 3, 1938], and K. Barry Sharpless [b. 1941] are awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their discoveries of catalysts that enable chemists to create chemicals that are preferentially left-handed or right-handed.
Construction
The twin towers forming the World Trade Center in New York are destroyed by the impact of hijacked planes piloted by terrorists whose clear intent is to ram into the towers. At the same time, another plane hijacked by the same group crashes into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth hijacked airplane crashes in Pennsylvania, apparently because the passengers fought against the hijackers, who are thought to have had another building in Washington, DC, as the target.
Earth science
Maurice Bluestein of Indiana University-Purdue University and Randall Osczevski of the Defense and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine in Toronto, Canada, develop an adjusted wind-chill-factor scale based on experiments with human volunteers and measurements of wind speed at face level, which is usually less than that measured by anemometers. This scale, the Wind Chill Temperature Index, is adopted November 1 by both the U.S. National Weather Service and the Meteorological Services of Canada. See also 1959 Earth science.
A fossil of a dromaeosaur dinosaur with feathers and a long reptilian tail from 130,000,000 years bp is found in the Liaoning, China, fossil beds, but will not be announced until March 2002. The feathers are clearly imprinted into the rock, convincing most scientists that feathers evolved with dinosaurs rather than with birds, widely believed to be the living descendants of the dinosaurs. The feathered dromaeosaur lived some 20,000,000 years after the first known bird, however. See also 1998 Earth science.
Johannes G.M. Thewissen and his team describe the discovery of two early whale ancestors, terrestrial mammals that lived 50,000,000 years ago: the fox-size Ichthyolestes and the wolf-size Pakicetus.
On December 7 the United States in cooperation with France launches the satellite Jason 1. It will monitor ocean circulation and help determine the relation between the oceans and the atmosphere, as well as follow such events as the El Niños. See also 1982 Earth science.
On December 7 the United States launches TIMED (Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere-Energetics and Dynamics), a satellite that gathers data on the influence of the Sun and humans on the upper atmosphere.
Ecology & the environment
Studies in the Amazon rain forest and the cloud forests of Central America show that deforestation changes the climate so much that both these ecosystems could disappear in a short period of time, perhaps in three decades, if their extent is reduced so much that the feedback cycle is broken.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, established by the United Nations, reports in January that greenhouse gases produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels "contributed substantially to the observed [global] warming over the last 50 years." See also 2000 Ecology & the environment.
In February scientists report that global warming is resulting in the loss of snow cover from the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa and the melting of glaciers in the Andes of South America. See also 1999 Ecology & the environment.
In March, President George W. Bush withdraws the United States from the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty intended to reduce global warming by reducing the rate of production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. See also 1997 Ecology & the environment.
In April oceanographers report that the oceans are warming as a result of human activities. See also 1999 Ecology & the environment.
The Aleutian Canada goose (Branta canadensis leucoparia) is removed from the United States Endangered Species List. The Aleutian Canada goose is found on only a few of Alaska's Aleutian Islands and in some areas of California and Oregon. Its decline began with the introduction of foxes on the islands where the geese breed by trappers who wanted to harvest the foxes for their fur. The fox, a new predator to the Aleutians, completely eradicated the goose populations on every island but one (which had no foxes introduced). Biologists, beginning in 1967, worked to eliminate foxes from the islands, followed by reintroducing geese to the islands. See also 1995 Ecology & the environment.
Electronics
Various researchers, by crossing carbon nanotubes or by diluting molecules called thiols with nonconductors, create transistors consisting of single nanotubes. See also 1999 Materials; 2003 Materials.
Yong Chen of Quantum Science Research (Hewlett-Packard) invents a manufacturing method, called nano-imprint lithography, that can produce molecular-scale circuits on computer chips. Platinum wires formed by electron-beam lithography form a master mold on which a single layer of electronically switchable molecules is deposited. A second grid of wires is placed orthogonal (wires are at right angles to each other) to the first. Wire junctions less than a square micrometer can be addressed and used to read or write data.
Mathematics
Isaac Chuang and his team at Stanford University and IBM's Almaden Research Center demonstrate the use of a simple quantum computer for applying Peter Shor's quantum factoring algorithm. See also 1994 Mathematics.
Medicine & health
Self-contained artificial hearts (with no components outside the body) called AbioCors are implanted in clinical trials on July 2 and September 13. See also 1990 Medicine & health.
U.S. President George W. Bush restricts federal payments to support research into embryonic stem cells to use of those lines or stem cells already started (that is, to viable daughter cells descended from a cell previously harvested from embryonic tissue). Embryonic stem cells are thought to be important to developing cures to several chronic and debilitating diseases. See also 1998 Medicine & health; 2002 Medicine & health.
On September 13 doctors in Boston correct a heart defect, hypoplastic left-heart syndrome, in an unborn fetus. The boy is born healthy some 11 weeks later. Untreated cases of this disease result in death shortly after birth. See also 1999 Medicine & health.
Physics
Scientists at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory detect an important shortfall in electron neutrinos coming from the Sun -- the strongest indication yet that neutrinos oscillate from one type to another as they travel. In Japan, the Super-Kamiokande detector, whose earlier results indicated that neutrino types oscillate between electron, muon, and tauon types, detects 44 neutrinos coming from the KEK laboratory, while 64 were expected, confirming earlier results. The theory of oscillation also implies that neutrinos that oscillate must have mass. See also 2000 Physics.
Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory smash the nuclei of gold atoms into a gold target, producing what appears to be a quark-gluon plasma, thought to be the first such state of matter on Earth.
Two groups of researchers use slightly different methods to stop a light wave, or photon, and store it for as much as a millisecond in an atomic gas. Lene Hau of Harvard University and coworkers store the light wave in very cold atomic sodium gas, while Ron Walsworth and coworkers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics store the photons in a vapor of warm rubidium atoms. The light beam after stopping momentarily can be restarted without changing its characteristics. See also 1999 Physics.
Eric Cornell, Wolfgang Ketterle, and Carl Wieman are awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for their creation of Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), a new state of matter, adding BECs to the short list of solid, liquid, gas, and plasma states. See also 1995 Physics.
Transportation
After a February 7 launch, the space shuttle Atlantis (crew: Kenneth Cockrell, Robert Curbeam, Jr., Marsha Ivins, Thomas Jones, and Mark Polansky) delivers a science laboratory to the International Space Station (ISS), the first of a half dozen U.S. flights and two Russian trips to ISS this year. Atlantis returns on July 12 carrying Michael Gernhardt, Charles Hobaugh, Janet Kavandi, Steven Lindsey, and James Reilly. The mission delivers and installs the Quest Airlock on ISS.
Discovery is launched on March 8 with a crew consisting of James Kelly, Paul Richards, Andrew Thomas, and James Wetherbee for ISS resupply, lab outfitting, and crew exchange. Another crew exchange starts with the August 10 Discovery launch, bringing Daniel Barry, Patrick Forrester, Scott Horowitz, and Frederick Sturckow to the space station.
The year's first launch of Endeavour is on April 19, with Jeffrey Ashby, Scott Parazynski, John Phillips, Kent Rominger, Chris Hadfield (Canada), Umberto Guidoni (Italy), and Yuri Lonchakov (Russia) as the international crew. The mission attaches Canadarm2, a robotic arm, to ISS. A final crew exchange begins on December 5, when Endeavour lifts Linda Godwin, Dominic Gorie, Mark Kelly, and Daniel Tani to ISS.
Russian space vehicle Soyuz TM 32 is launched on April 28 to bring a crew of Yuri Baturin, Talgat Musabayev, and Dennis Tito (United States), the first space tourist, to ISS. The Soyuz emergency vehicle is exchanged, so the crew returns on Soyuz TM 31. On October 21 Soyuz TM 33, carrying Viktor Afanasyev, Konstantin Kozeev, and Claudie Haignere (ESA) lifts to ISS to conduct experiments in materials research, life sciences, and meteorological phenomena. Again the emergency vehicle is exchanged, so the crew returns on Soyuz TM 32.
After 15 years in space, the Russian space station Mir is abandoned and plunges into the Pacific Ocean.