2002
President Bush unsettles America's Asian and European allies with a state of the union address January 29 that includes the term "Axis of Evil," making some Americans squirm by echoing Ronald Reagan's "evil empire" characterization of the former Soviet Union, lumping Iraq and Iran with North Korea and implying that the United States may opt unilaterally to shut down their ability to foment terrorism with weapons of mass destruction (Canadian-born speech writer David Frum, 41, originally used the term "Axis of Hatred" but higher-ups in the West Wing changed it). Allies and many Americans express concern in early March at news of a secret 56-page Pentagon report to Congress outlining a broad overhaul of U.S. nuclear policy with contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against targets that include not only Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, and North Korea but also China and Russia (the Bush administration hastens to say that its position on first-use of nuclear weapons is no different from that of earlier administrations).
Common Cause founder and former cabinet member John W. Gardner dies of prostate cancer at his Palo Alto, Calif., home February 16 at age 89, having worked for campaign-finance reform. The House of Representatives has voted 240 to 189 February 14 to overhaul campaign-finance laws, the Senate votes 60 to 40 March 20 to approve the Campaign Finance Reform Bill, generally called the McCain-Feingold bill for its sponsors John S. (Sidney) McCain Jr., now 65, (R. Ariz.) and Russell D. (Dana) Feingold, 59 (D. Wis.). It limits "soft money" contributions to political parties but doubles the $1,000 limit on individual contributions, President Bush raised a record $113 million in such "hard money" contributions 2 years ago, and he signs the measure March 27, but opponents led by right-wing Republican Mitch McConnell (R. Ky.) and the National Rifle Association immediately file suit in federal district at Washington, D.C., to have the measure declared unconstitutional, others such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) vow to fight the new law in court, and compromises soon make the campaign-finance "reform" almost meaningless (see 2003).
President Bush responds June 6 to revelations that the CIA and FBI had information prior to last year's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that might have led to the apprehension of the perpetrators. Bush calls for the creation of a cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security that would coordinate some activities of various intelligence agencies, the Coast Guard, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Secret Service with an annual budget of $37.5 billion. The president appointed former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge last fall to coordinate domestic security from the White House but resisted giving him cabinet status. Democrats in the Senate block a House bill authorizing creation of the new department, protesting that its employees would be denied collective-bargaining rights.
Retired U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, 52, speaks out July 6 against any invasion of Iraq, saying the administration has exaggerated the case for war. Sent to Africa by the CIA in February to investigate claims that Iraq's Saddam Hussein tried to buy yellowcake (uranium ore) in Niger, Wilson reported back that Niger officials knew of no such effort (see 2003).
President Bush and Vice President Cheney escalate their insistence that Iraq's Saddam Hussein has biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction, is close to having nuclear-weapon capability, and must be ousted in a "regime change" even if the United States must do it unilaterally. Cheney gives a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) at Nashville August 26 saying, "We will not live at the mercy of terrorists" and urging quick action. Hard-liners in the White House push aside Secretary of State Colin Powell and others who urge caution, they dismiss Iraqi promises to allow resumption of inspections by United Nations observers, Britain's prime minister Tony Blair is the only foreign head of state to support a preemptive strike against Iraq (most Britons strongly oppose any unilateral U.S. action, as do most other Europeans, and no Middle Eastern nation offers aid in the absence of United Nations approval). Bush addresses the UN General Assembly September 12 to press his argument that Iraq has repeatedly avoided compliance with UN resolutions since 1991 and threatens to make the UN a paper tiger; Pentagon officials warn that Saddam will use desperate measures if attacked; "After all," President Bush says at Houston September 26, "this is the guy who tried to kill my dad." Leading Democrats voice alarm at letting any president take such extreme action at his own discretion, they say it would actually weaken the "war" against terrorism (no clear link has been established between Baghdad and al Qaeda), and they warn that taking preemptive military action would set a precedent that nuclear powers such as China, India, Korea, or Pakistan might follow.
The White House releases a 33-page document September 26 entitled "National Security Strategy of the United States" and quoting statements made by the president at West Point June 1. Thought to have been influenced in large part by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz and other members of the Project for the New American Century founded in 1997, the "Bush doctrine" says America is the world's strongest nation, enjoying "unparalleled military strength." It echoes a Pentagon memorandum released to the press in March 1992 and some subsequent statements, saying, "Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military buildup in hopes of surpassing, or equating, the power of the United States," and the country will never again allow its military supremacy to be challenged as it was during the cold war, but many question the wisdom of such chest thumping at a time when America is trying to enlist allied support for action against terrorism.
The president enjoys high popularity in the polls and many in Congress fear political defeat if they appear soft on the issue of national security; Bush softens his own position, saying in a speech at Cincinnati October 6 that war is neither "imminent nor inevitable," but he insists that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction and Congress approves a resolution October 10 and 11 authorizing him to take whatever action he deems "necessary and appropriate in order to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq" (the House vote is 296 to 133, the Senate 77 to 23). Opinion polls show that the public is at best ambivalent on the issue of invasion and many in both chambers, and on both sides of the aisle, insist that they do not support any new doctrine of preemptive action, especially without UN sanction and allied support. President Bush signs the resolution October 16, gains little support at the UN, and makes belligerent statements about invading Iraq; only then is it revealed that North Korea has admitted to having a clandestine nuclear-weapons development program in violation of her 1994 agreement not to pursue such efforts, the White House says it will seek a diplomatic solution to that nation's nuclear threat, but it rejects a North Korean offer for talks November 3. Veteran congresswoman Patsy Mink (D. Hawaii) has died at Honolulu September 28 at age 74 of viral pneumonia stemming from chicken pox.
Saddam Hussein opens the gates of his prisons October 20, letting common criminals go free along with tens of thousands of political prisoners, but many opponents of the regime remain missing and hundreds of family members take to the streets with demands for knowledge of long-lost husbands, sons, and fathers.
Sen. Paul Wellstone (D. Minn.) dies in the crash of a chartered plane October 25 at age 58 while campaigning for election to a third term; he was outspoken in his objection to any unilateral action against Iraq, and his death spurs opposition to the Bush administration's policy. October 26 rallies against unilateral action bring out the largest crowds of protesters since the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations of the 1960s, with more than 100,000 at Washington, D.C., and smaller but sizeable groups in New York's Central Park and elsewhere. Republicans regain control of the Senate by a narrow margin in the November 5 elections, President Bush says the question of war with Iraq is up to Saddam Hussein, and the UN Security Council whose 15 members include Syria votes unanimous approval November 8 of Resolution 1441 requiring Iraq to come clean on her weapons-development programs, admitting inspectors with no restrictions whatever, or face "serious consequences." The vote postpones any decision as to what the Security Council will do should Saddam Hussein not comply.
The Homeland Security Act signed into law by President Bush November 25 combines 170,000 federal workers from 22 existing agencies (including the Coast Guard, Customs, Immigration and Naturalization Service, and Transportation Security) into a new department that does not include the CIA or FBI but would have its own, independent intelligence arm. Originally drafted by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D. Conn.), the measure met with horror on the part of Republicans, who found the idea of a huge new federal bureaucracy distasteful, but the Bush administration embraced it in June, the House approved it July 31, some senators tried to block the measure on grounds that employees in the new department would have no collective-bargaining rights, but the Senate approved it November 19. In the end only nine Democrats in the Senate voted nay, the rest fearing they would be called "soft" on national defense, but opponents questioned whether the new department would make the country any safer against terrorism (some critics say it will actually make it less safe as agencies and individuals jockey for power). Even the most optimistic supporters concede that it will take at least 5 years to have the new department up and running, and President Bush has twisted arms at the last moment to avoid having opponents eliminate provisions that favor special interests such as pharmaceutical companies and corporations that have moved offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes.
Former CIA director Richard Helms dies of multiple myeloma at Washington, D.C., October 23 at age 89; former Roman Catholic priest and Vietnam War draft-resistance leader Philip F. Berrigan of liver and kidney cancer at Baltimore December 6 at age 79.
French voters reelect President Jacques Chirac by a wide margin May 5 in a resounding rejection of right-wing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen, who nevertheless wins nearly 18 percent of the vote (his highest showing yet) to Chirac's 82 percent, but Socialist leaders quickly end their alliance with the 69-year-old president.
A lone gunman kills 49-year-old right-wing Dutch populist Pim Fortuyn in a parking lot at the town of Hilversum May 6. A former sociology professor who was campaigning to be the nation's first homosexual prime minister, Fortuyn had opposed immigration and received relatively large support, as had politicians with similar views in Belgium, Austria, Denmark, and France.
Social Democrat German chancellor Gerhard Schröder wins reelection by a narrow margin September 22 after antagonizing President Bush by vowing that Germany will not support a unilateral U.S. attack on Iraq in the absence of clear evidence to support charges of an "imminent" Iraqi threat. Few Europeans support any U.S. invasion.
Chechen separatists seize a Moscow theater October 23 and threaten to start killing hostages if Vladimir Putin does not declare an end to the war with Chechnya by October 25 and start pulling out (see 2000). Commando troops surround the theater and begin tunneling beneath it, the terrorists allow some children to go, several women escape, but 763 people are still in detention 58 hours later when an agitated smoker deprived of his nicotine fix goes berserk in the stuffy theater at about 2:40 in the morning, leaps from his seat, and lunges for an exit, stepping on people's heads and backs of seats. A gunman opens fire, misses the young man, and shoots another man in the eye, a girl is hit, and a 200-man Federal Security Force team subdues the suicide hostage takers by releasing an opiate gas, accidentally killing about 117 hostages along with all but one of the Chechens (see 2004).
Afghans elect their interim leader Hamid Karzai president in a loya jirga held at Kabul in June (see 2001). Germany has provided a huge tent for the 1,500 delegates who have attended, but Karzai dashes hopes for democratization when he announces his cabinet; he has promoted warlords to head the ministries of defense and foreign affairs while removing professionals. U.S. special forces protect Karzai from assassination; his government exercises little or no control beyond Kabul, with warlords vying for power elsewhere in the country and wide-scale production of opium poppies for the heroin trade resuming after it was virtually halted by the Taliban in areas it controlled. French and German forces will try to maintain order in Afghanistan in the absence of enough U.S. troops.
Bahrain voters in the Persian Gulf elect a parliament October 24 that will for the first time share some decision making with the tiny island's progressive king Sheik Hamad bin Isa al-Halifa, who has released all political prisoners, repealed laws permitting arbitrary arrests, invited exiles to return home, and eased restraints on the press (see 2000). His wife, Sabika, has campaigned actively to encourage women to vote, and it is the first election in the Gulf region to have female candidates and voters.
Turkey's Justice and Development Party sweeps the November 3 parliamentary elections, making former Istanbul mayor Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 48, head of state in place of the ailing Bulent Ecevit, now 77, whose party wins barely 1 percent of the vote (see 1999). Erdogan recited a poem in a 1997 speech that said in part, "The mosques are our bayonets, the domes our helmets, and the believers our soldiers;" that led to his conviction in 1998 on charges of inciting religious hatred in a staunchly secular country, he was stripped of office and sentenced to 10 months' imprisonment, he served 4 months in 1999, the nation's highest court has disqualified him in September from running for office, but Turks are fed up with corruption and economic failure, and Erdogan has projected a moderate, pro-Western image, denying that his party espouses an Islamic agenda. The party names former economics professor Abdullah Gul, 52, prime minister November 16; a machinist's son who is considered a moderate, he expresses confidence that the country can thrive as a democracy with western leanings under Islamic leadership. The new regime at Ankara moves November 30 to lift a 15-year state of emergency that has imposed restrictions on Kurds in the southeast, but anti-American sentiment in the region is strong and the government announces December 3 that in the event of a war with Iraq it will allow U.S. use of Turkish air bases but will not allow any large-scale deployment of U.S. troops in its territory (see 2003).
The Arab satellite television channel al-Jazeera airs a 4-minute audiotape by Osama bin Laden November 12, the al Qaeda leader praises recent terrorist attacks on the island of Bali and at Moscow, he threatens further bloodshed related to Iraq, Pentagon experts determine that the voice really is bin Laden's, and the revelation establishes that he is still alive despite efforts to find him somewhere in Afghanistan or Pakistan. The CIA, FBI, and Pakistani authorities captured bin Laden's operations chief Abu Zubaydah at Faisalabad in March, a CIA Predator drone fired a missile in Yemen November 3 that killed six suspected al Qaeda operatives including Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, and U.S. officials announce November 21 that al Qaeda's chief of Persian Gulf operations Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri is in custody (he is said to have masterminded terrorist plots that included bombing the U.S.S. Cole in October 2000). Suicide bombers kill 16 people (including the attackers) at a Mombasa hotel November 28.
Hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians escalate to new levels of intensity as the cycle of provocation and retaliation continues (see 2001). Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah proposes a normalization of relations based on the return of Israel to its pre-1967 borders, skeptics say the proposal is a public relations effort designed to rebuff criticism that almost all of the terrorists in last year's World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks were Saudis, Prime Minister Sharon deploys 20,000 troops and sends 150 tanks into the West Bank city of Ramallah, the Bush administration removes its support of Sharon's hard-line tactics, and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan tells Israel March 12 that she "must end the illegal occupation" of Palestinian lands, but the conflict continues. A suicide bombing March 27 in the dining room of Israel's seaside Park Hotel at Netanya kills 29 and injures more than 100 (the room has been packed with Passover Seder celebrants); a synagogue bombing at Djerba, Tunisia, April 11 leaves 21 dead, including 14 German tourists; a car-bomb explosion outside the Sheraton Hotel at Karachi May 8 kills 14 people, 11 of them French citizens; President Bush phones Sharon and Arafat May 23, urging them to accept a framework for ending the violence, but he receives strong criticism from U.S. Christian ecumenicals who support Sharon. A bomb exploded outside the U.S. Consulate at Karachi June 14 kills 12 and injures 26; an Israeli F-16 drops a one-ton laser-guided bomb on a densely-packed Gaza neighborhood just after midnight July 23, killing Hamas military leader Sheikh Salah Shehada along with 14 other people, nine of them children. President Bush condemns the bombing as "heavy-handed," Palestinians vow revenge, and the incident encourages further terrorism. An explosion on the French tanker Limburg October 6 leaves one crewman dead, 12 injured, and dumps 90,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf of Aden. Authorities find evidence of a bomb and suggest that al Qaeda terrorists rammed the ship; a terrorist bomb explodes in a Bali nightclub the night of October 11, killing upwards of 180 and leaving close to 300 wounded. Most of the victims are foreign tourists, many of them from Australia. Authorities arrest a Muslim cleric who has been linked to Islamic extremist groups. Israel's Labor Party quits the 19-month-old coalition government October 30 as the moderately leftist group asserts its displeasure at Prime Minister Sharon's proposed budget, which favors settlements over the social needs of the country. Former Israeli diplomat Abba Eban dies at Tel Aviv November 16 at age 87, having always favored a sharing of the country with Arabs.
Zambia's ruling party president Levy Mwanawasa takes office January 1 after the tightest election since the country gained independence in 1964. The electoral commission has announced that Mwanawasa won 29 percent of the popular vote, the leading opposition candidate 27 percent, but there are charges of extensive ballot-rigging, the 10 opposition parties boycott the swearing-in ceremony, and there is widespread stone-throwing in protest demonstrations.
Angolan government forces ambush Unita rebel leader Jonas Savimbi February 23 and kill him in a skirmish near his base in the province of Moxico. Dead at age 67, Savimbi began fighting for independence from Portugal more than 35 years ago and then struggled for power after Angola gained independence in 1975, representing himself as an anti-communist to get support from the CIA.
Zimbabwe holds a presidential election in March, opposition candidate Morgan Tavangari mounts the strongest challenge yet to the corrupt rule of 78-year-old President Robert Mugabe, foreign observers note so much intimidation, violence, and other irregularities that they declare the election fundamentally flawed, Mugabe claims victory by a large majority, but the United States and some other countries refuse to recognize the outcome.
Kenya's voters end 39 years of rule by the founding Kenyan African National Union (KANU) Party, which loses the presidential election December 27 to National Rainbow Coalition Party leader Mwai Kabaki, 71, a Ugandan- and London-educated economist who has promised an end to the blatant corruption that has kept the impoverished, AIDS-ridden country from receiving World Bank or International Monetary Fund support. A onetime Mau Mau member, Kabaki wins 63 percent of the popular vote, defeating the late Jomo Kenyatta's 43-year-old son Uhuru Kenyatta, a U.S.-educated businessman chosen by outgoing president Daniel arap Moi, now 76, who has held office since 1979 and allegedly looted the country of more than $1 billion in taxpayer money, hiding it in overseas accounts or using it to buy foreign real estate, including two London hotels, spacious English country homes, and a fleet of luxury cars.
Former North Vietnamese general Van Tien Dung dies at Hanoi March 17 at age 84.
East Timor gains independence from Indonesia May 20 (see 1999; 2001).
India and Pakistan mobilize on their border in late May, raising fears of war between the two nuclear powers. Tempers cool despite continued atrocities by Muslims against Hindus and vice versa.
Malaysia's prime minister Mahathir Mohamad announces June 25 that he will leave office October 25 of next year. Now 76, he has held power since 1981, railed against the West (but condemned last September's terrorist attacks), and kept peace among nation's ethnic Malays, Chinese, and Indians, countenancing secularization in the Islam state of 21 million. His hand-picked heir-apparent is Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, 62, who has been deputy prime minister.
The United States, Japan, and South Korea issue a joint statement October 26 demanding that North Korea dismantle her clandestine nuclear-weapons development program "in a prompt and verifiable manner" and warning Kim Jung Il that his "relations with the international community" depends on compliance. North Korea and Japan hold high-level talks at Kuala Lumpur beginning October 29, but the North Koreans insist that they will negotiate only with the United States and refuse demands that they halve the development program. The United States cuts off oil shipments to North Korea in November; South Korea, Japan, and the European Union follow suit November 14 pending action by Pyongyang "to dismantle completely" its program to develop nuclear weapons (see 2003).
Chinese Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin gives up his position as general secretary November 15 after 13 years in which the People's Republic has achieved stability and prosperity, becoming an international powerhouse with greater personal freedom and higher living standards but with continued corruption and widespread unemployment. Now 76, Jiang remains the power behind successor Hu Jintao, 39.
Former Burmese dictator U Ne Win dies under house arrest at his lakeside home outside Rangoon (Yangon) December 5 at age 81.
South Korean farmer's son and former civil-rights lawyer Roh Moo Hyun, 56, wins a tightly contested presidential election December 19, succeeding Kim Dae-jung. Roh has been associated with calls for the withdrawal of some 30,000 U.S. troops, he proposes loosening ties to the United States, and he favors continued engagement with North Korea despite that country's resumption of its nuclear-energy program. Critics have called him a dangerous radical with no knowledge of foreign affairs.
Venezuela has a massive civil uprising April 11 against President Hugo Chavez, right-wing generals announce his resignation and whisk him away to the island of Orchila, Chavez has alienated the country's elite (and many foreign powers) by visiting with Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Cuba's Fidel Castro, and Libya's Muammar Qadaffi, Washington makes no secret of its pleasure at having the democratically elected president ousted after 3 years in power, he is replaced briefly by a 60-year-old puppet who dissolves the National Assembly and dismisses the Supreme Court, forces loyal to Chavez restore the president to power at Caracas within 48 hours, the country is left in turmoil, and hundreds of thousands take to the streets in December, shutting down oil exports and demanding Chavez's ouster.
An investigative judge at Buenos Aires orders the arrest July 10 of former Argentine military dictator Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri and more than 30 other military officers in connection with the "dirty war" against leftists from 1976 to 1983. Now 75, Gen. Galtieri faces accusations that he and the others were responsible for the torture and disappearances of an estimated 5,000 people.
Colombia's president Alvaro Uribe Vélez, 50, assumes office August 7 despite the firing of at least five homemade mortar shells that kill or mortally wound at least 19 people in the center of Bogotá as he prepares to take the oath. A bookish-looking Oxford- and Harvard-educated lawyer who served as governor of his home province Antioquia from 1995 to 1998, Uribe has won election in May with 20 percentage points more than his nearest rival; he flies August 8 to Valledupar in the heart of the country's lawless northeastern territory, where he helps set up a plan to recruit civilian informers in an effort to combat Marxist guerrilla groups, notably the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that gunned down Uribe's father on the family ranch in Antioquia 19 years ago and supported Uribe's predecessor, Andres Pastrana.
Brazil's left-wing Workers' Party wins the presidential election in a runoff October 27, making former factory worker Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 56, president. He has defeated former cabinet member José Serra, 50, of the centrist Social Democratic Party who has suggested that da Silva will make Brazil vulnerable to an Argentine-style economic class war or to Venezuelan-style political instability, but Silva has tapped into a widespread discontent and Serra's party does not win control of the nation's largest states.
Former Bolivian dictator Hugo Banzer dies of a heart attack at Santa Cruz May 5 at age 75; former Peruvian president Fernando Belaunde Terry at Lima June 4 at age 89; former Dominican strongman Joaquín Balaguer at Santo Domingo July 14 at age 95; former Guyana president Desmond Hoyte of heart failure at Georgetown December 22 at age 73.
The U.S. Supreme Court expands the concept of state sovereignty under the Eleventh Amendment May 28, ruling 5 to 4 that the state-owned Port of Charleston, S.C., is immune from prosecution by the U.S. Maritime Commission (a cruise line had complained to the Commission that the port wrongfully denied a berth to one of its ships).
Former U.S. senator (and Georgia governor) Herman E. Talmadge dies at his Hampton, Ga., home March 21 at age 88; Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Jr. (ret.) at Walter Reed Hospital July 4 at age 89, having led the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II; submarine commander Edward L. Beach, U.S. Navy (ret.), dies at his Washington, D.C., home December 1 at age 84.
A writ of habeas corpus filed February 19 at Washington, D.C., demands the release of two British subjects (Asif Iqbal, 20, and Shafiq Rasul, 24) and an Australian citizen (David Hicks, 26) who have been held by U.S. authorities at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, without charges (see 2001). The detainees' lawyers demand also that the prisoners be allowed to speak to their families, be informed of the charges against them, be given access to legal counsel, and be given trials or military tribunals to determine their guilt or innocence. The district court dismisses the case with prejudice July 30 on grounds that it does not have jurisdiction because Guantánamo Bay is not sovereign U.S. territory (see 2004).
A Jefferson County, Ala., jury at Birmingham sentences former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry, now 71, to life imprisonment May 22 for his role in planting the bomb that killed four schoolgirls at the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963.
Neo-Nazi leader and white supremacist William Pierce dies of cancer at his Hillsboro, W. Va., trailer home July 23 at age 69.
Outgoing Sen. Strom Thurmond (R. S.C.) celebrates his 100th birthday December 5 and incoming Senate majority leader Trent Lott embarrasses fellow Republicans by saying of his fellow Mississippians, "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either" (see 1980). President Bush decries Lott's remarks, Lott apologizes, but his words raise questions about Republican ties to white supremacists. Lott resigns under pressure December 20, Republicans choose Sen. Bill Frist, 50, of Tennessee to succeed him December 23, but critics note that Frist is a political neophyte, and although a physician who has performed heart surgery on a pro bono basis in Africa he has opposed abortion rights, patient rights, stem-cell research, wrote the section of the Homeland Security Act protecting Eli Lilly from liability in connection with certain vaccines, and leans toward an insurance-industry version of any prescription-benefits bill.
Advocate Justin Dart Jr. dies of pneumonia and the aftereffects of poliomyelitis at his Washington, D.C., home June 22 at age 71, having fought for passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; gay-rights pioneer Harry Hay dies at his San Francisco home October 24 at age 90; journalist and women's rights advocate Yayori Matsui of liver cancer at Tokyo December 27 at age 68.
Cincinnati's City Council bars the Ku Klux Klan from displaying a cross in Fountain Square during the Christmas holidays as it has done many times for decades.
The euro begins circulating in most European countries January 1, the paper currency being identical (the coins that have circulated since late last year are identical on one side but retain national identity on the other).
Argentina's default on her foreign debt creates an economic crisis that threatens to spread throughout South America (see 2001), her interim president Eduardo Duhaide decouples the peso from the dollar, but the overvalued currency goes into free fall and there are huge runs on banks as the predominant middle class loses all confidence in the currency; inflation soars and by midyear at least 40 percent of the population is living below the poverty line with nearly 25 percent of workers unemployed. The Bush administration has initially opposed financial aid to struggling economies but agrees August 4 to extend up to $1.5 billion in loans to Uruguay on the understanding that repayment will be made within days when Uruguay receives a longer-term package of loans from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and Inter-American Development Bank, raising to $3.8 billion the total in assistance to Uruguay. Secretary of the Treasury Paul H. O'Neil arrives in Brazil August 4 and assures the leaders of that country that they will receive up to $30 billion in loans, most of it on condition that elections in October do not bring a leftist administration to power.
President Bush backs off from his free trade policies March 5 by imposing tariffs of up to 30 percent on most imported steel to protect the failing domestic industry; his administration admits that the move has been made purely for political reasons (to win votes in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia), but although Bush officials argue that foreign countries have subsidized their steel industries for decades many trading partners cry foul, the action raises possibilities of retaliation, and economists predict that higher steel prices will translate into higher prices for products such as automobiles and home appliances with high steel content (see 2003). National Steel Corp. files for bankruptcy March 6 (see 2003). A "fast-track" measure signed into law by Bush August 6 restores after an 8-year lapse a president's authority to make trade agreements without having Congress tack on amendments (most Democrats voted against the controversial bill, the House approved it by a vote of 215 to 212, the Senate 64 to 34).
The collapse of Enron triggers congressional investigations and brings demands for new legislation to protect employees' 401K plans (see 2001). A federal task force files a criminal complaint October 2 against Enron's New Jersey-born former chief financial officer Andrew S. Fastow, now 40, who became CFO at age 37 and 3 years ago was considered by many to be one of the nation's most innovative executives but now surrenders to FBI agents, is released on $5 million bail, and is indicted October 30 on charges of having persistently falsified financial statements through the use of complex partnerships, thereby concealing $1 billion in debt and defrauding investors.
A study released in April by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute shows that the average inflation-adjusted income of New York's poorest 20 percent of households has fallen 5.9 percent to $12,639 since 1982 (down from $13,432); the average income of the richest 20 percent has risen 54.1 percent to $161,858 (up from $56,812)
Japan's economy continues to tank, the nation's public debt mushrooms to 140 percent of the gross national product, banks totter under the burden of nonperforming loans, the government limits deposits covered by federal insurance to $75,000 as of April 1, and the world's biggest savers increase their purchases of gold as confidence wanes in the ability of the government to deal effectively with the economy.
President Bush delivers a speech at Miami May 30 declaring that Fidel Castro has "turned a beautiful island into a prison" and the United States will not lift her embargo on trade with Cuba until that country shows a significant movement toward democracy. He threatens to veto any attempt by Congress to ease restrictions on trade with Cuba, yielding to pressures from Florida's right-wing Cuban voters despite efforts by farm-state Republicans to open up new markets (but see 2003). Now 75, Castro receives a visit from former president Carter in June and is less concerned about Bush's remarks than about the Valera Project, a grass-roots movement calling for a national referendum on restoring freedom of speech and association, releasing political prisoners, allowing genuine multi-party elections, and permitting free enterprise.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Bill passed by Congress July 3 authorizes a 77 percent increase in the budget for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), raising it from $438 million to $776 million. Named for Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes, 69 (D. Md.), and Rep. Michael G. Oxley, 58 (R. Ohio), the measure provides for a new accounting-oversight board, but the Bush administration cuts the proposed SEC budget back to $568 million and offers to restore $200 million only after pressure from Democrats.
President Bush lectures business leaders at New York's Wall Street Regent Hotel about corporate responsibility July 9, having promised them 2 years ago to head an administration that would be less intrusive in their affairs. "My administration pressed for greater corporate integrity," Bush says. "A united Congress has written it into law. And today I sign the most far-reaching reforms in American business practices since the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt."
The Bush administration releases projections in mid-July that for the current fiscal year the government will run a $165 billion deficit, having run a $600 million surplus in the previous fiscal year.
Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill resigns under pressure December 6 and so does National Economic Council Chief Lawrence B. Lindsey as the economy continues to founder, the jobless rate rises, and equities markets remain in the dumps. O'Neill has not been supportive of the Bush administration's tax cuts; President Bush nominates economist and CSX chairman John W. Snow, 63, to the cabinet position December 10 and later names former Goldman, Sachs co-chairman Steven Friedman to succeed Lindsey.
Berlin announces December 16 that it will reduce taxes on interest and offer amnesty to Germans who have squirreled away money in tax havens such as Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder says the program could bring as much as 100 billion euros ($102 billion) back to Germany.
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 31 at 8341.63, down from 10021.50 at the end of 2001. The NASDAQ closes at 1335.51, down from 1950.40 at the end of 2001.
Kmart Corp. files for bankruptcy protection January 22 in the biggest such filing ever for a retailer. The company employs 240,000 people and announces that it will keep all of its 2,114 stores open for the present, but many of the stores are rundown and the Troy, Mich.-based company announces in early March that it will close 284 outlets this year and cut 22,000 jobs (but see 2004).
Retailer Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus dies at Dallas January 22 at age 96, having headed the store from 1950 to 1972, even after selling it to Carter Hawley Hale in 1969.
Sears, Roebuck & Co. announces May 13 that it will pay $1.86 billion in cash to acquire the 39-year-old mail-order firm Land's End. Sears will return to the catalogue business that it quit in 1993 and will have exclusive rights to stock Land's End apparel in its 870 retail stores.
The United States has only 53 single-location department stores as of July, down from 281 in 1993.
Fluid catalytic cracking pioneer Donald L. Campbell dies at Brick, N.J., September 14 at age 98, having worked as a chemical engineer for Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey (and then Exxon) for 41 years.
Ford Motor Company announces January 11 that it will close five North American plants in the next 5 years, eliminate 17,000 jobs worldwide on top of the 18,000 cut in the last 12 months, halt production of the Ford Escort, Lincoln Continental, Mercury Cougar, and Mercury Villager, and take a $4.1 billion charge for the fourth quarter (see 2001).
Seat-belt pioneer Nils Bohlin dies of heart disease at Tranas, Sweden, September 21 at age 82, having invented the improved belt that Volvo Car Corp. estimates has saved more than 1 million lives in the past 40 years; automaker Pierre Peugeot dies at Paris December 1 at age 70.
Fire on an Egyptian National Railway Authority train from Cairo to Luxor February 20 kills at least 270 people, destroying the seven rear cars of the 16-car train as the engineer roars ahead at top speed for four miles before coming to a stop (a passenger's cooking stove is blamed for the tragedy). Fares are heavily subsidized (a third-class ticket for the 300-mile trip costs just over $1), and overcrowded (a ticket does not assure a seat, and passengers sleep in the aisles or in overhead baggage racks). The government says it has invested $2 billion in Egypt's railways since 1992, but in a country where 300,000 college graduates cannot find jobs there is little money for public services; a train crash in Mozambique May 25 leaves 192 dead, 169 injured; a runaway passenger train in Tanzania plows into a freight train on the same track June 24, killing upwards of 200.
New Delhi's Metro opens Christmas Eve to serve India's capital with a completely elevated rail line (see 1984). It will have 23 kilometers of track by the end of March 2004, and construction will proceed on lines projected eventually to have 34.5 kms. underground, 35.5 kms. elevated, and 111 kms. surface routes.
Two jets collide over southern Germany the night of July 1 and explode more than 35,000 feet above the Earth, killing all 71 aboard. A Tupolev Tu-154 operated by Bashkirian Airlines on a charter flight bound from Moscow to Barcelona carried 57 passengers, including 52 Russian children, plus 12 crew members; a Boeing 757 cargo plane operated by the DHL courier network carried two people. German investigators blame Swiss air-traffic controllers.
US Airways Group files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection August 11 as losses mount at all U.S. air carriers except Southwest Airlines despite steep cuts in capacity and massive layoffs following the events of 9/11/2001. United Airlines files for bankruptcy protection December 10, the largest such filing in U.S. aviation history. Captains at the second-largest U.S. air carrier have been paid as much as $300,000 per year for working 11 hours per week, other labor contracts have been far more generous than those of competitors, many UAL routes are unprofitable, and the company has hemorrhaged money since last year.
A 10-day lockout at 29 West Coast ports ends October 8 as a federal judge grants President Bush's request for a back-to-work order under Taft-Hartley Act rules, the first time in 24 years that a president has invoked such rules. The management-labor standoff between the Pacific Maritime Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union has stranded billions of dollars worth of goods on ships waiting to be off-loaded, jeopardizing holiday sales of retailers awaiting imports. The dockworkers in some cases earn more than $100,000 per year, their contract expired in July, the terminal operators have been trying to use automation that would reduce some jobs, and the 80-day "cooling off" period is intended to give both sides a chance to resolve their differences.
IBM computer scientist John Cocke dies at Valhalla, N.Y., July 16 at age 77, having pioneered notably in the development of reduced instruction-set computers (RISC); Uzi submachine gun inventor Uziel Gal dies at Philadelphia September 7 at age 78; software pioneer Bob Wallace at his San Rafael, Calif., home September 20 at age 53.
Celera Genomics president and cofounder J. Craig Venter agrees January 22 to resign as the company shifts from gene research to developing pharmaceutical drugs.
Nobel physicist Aleksandr M. Prokhorov dies at his Moscow apartment January 8 at age 85; Nobel molecular biologist Max Perutz at Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, February 6 at age 87; anthropologist-adventurer Thor Heyerdahl of cancer while vacationing in Italy April 18 at age 87; Nobel biochemist Archer Martin in England July 28 at age 92, having suffered from Alzheimer's disease.
Medicare payments to U.S. physicians decline by an average of 5.4 percent January 1 under terms of a congressional mandate, but few doctors give up treating patients aged 65 and over, despite rising costs of equipment, malpractice insurance, office space, and everything else.
Nobel immunologist and monoclonal antibody codiscoverer César Milstein dies of a heart ailment at Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, March 24 at age 74.
The nonprofit National Institute for Health Care Management reports the results of a study in May challenging the pharmaceutical industry's claim that it needs high profits to fund highly innovative research: of 1,035 drugs accepted by the Food and Drug Administration from 1989 to 2000, it says, only 153 (15 percent) were medicines that both used new active ingredients and provided significant clinical improvements. Spending on prescription drugs more than doubled (to $132 billion) from 1995 to 2000, the study finds, and the increase was largely attributable to the least innovative of the new drugs. The industry-funded Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America notes that the study was financed by the health insurance industry and was "fundamentally flawed."
A mysterious disease that will later be identified as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) begins in November to cause fatalities in China's Guangdong Province; it will turn out (like puerperal fever in the 19th century) to be an infection spread through hospital wards by physicians and nurses (see 2003).
Poliomyelitis cases spike in northern Nigeria and adjacent areas as misinformation impedes World Health Organization vaccination efforts to eradicate the crippling disease worldwide by 2005. Polio afflicted roughly 350,000 people per year as recently as 15 years ago, the WHO has immunized tens of millions of children, but Islamic clerics who want to oust Nigeria's political regime have spread stories that the vaccine contains chemicals designed to sterilize African girls; virtually all other Muslims have endorsed the vaccination program, but although fewer than 1,000 cases will be reported next year there will be polio outbreaks in seven other African countries.
A Muslim mob attacks a trainload of Hindu fundamentalists at Godhara, India, February 28 and sets fire to a coach, killing 58 people, mostly women and children. Other cities in Gujarat erupt in violence, and within a week well over 500 people have been burned, stabbed, beaten to death, or otherwise killed.
Evangelist Billy Graham apologizes March 1 for anti-Semitic remarks he made in 1972 in a conversation with then-president Richard M. Nixon. Now 83, Graham says he has "no memory of the occasion," but the tape reveals that he told Nixon, "This stranglehold [of Jews on the media] has got to be broken or this country's going down the drain." When Nixon asked, "You believe that?" Graham replied, "Yes, sir," to which Nixon said, "Oh, boy. So do I. I can't ever say that, but I believe it." Graham: "No, but if you get elected a second time, then we might be able to do something." Right-wing Christian fundamentalists such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson insist that the second coming of the Messiah is imminent, bringing death to the Jews or their conversion to Christianity; the fundamentalists call themselves "evangelicals" and provide more financial support to Israel's Sharon government than do U.S. Jews.
Evangelist Carl (Curtis) McIntire dies at Voorhees, N.J., March 19 at age 95, having railed over some 600 radio stations against the "fascist" Roman Catholic Church.
Pope John Paul II issues a pre-Easter letter March 21 saying that "a dark shadow of suspicion" has been cast over all priests "by some of our brothers who have betrayed the grace of ordination." Revelations of predatory pedophilia by priests worldwide and tolerance of their behavior by bishops and even cardinals have created the worst crisis in the history of the church in America and elsewhere, but while the 81-year-old pope says that "the church shows her concern for the victims and strives to respond in truth and justice to each of these painful situations," he makes no specific reference to the scandals that have led the church to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements, praising rather the "other fine priests who perform their ministry with honesty and integrity and often with heroic sacrifice." The scandals have prompted many Roman Catholics to demand the resignation of Boston archbishop Bernard F. Cardinal Law (the pope accepts Law's resignation December 13) and to urge an end to celibacy in the priesthood.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals at San Francisco rules 2 to 1 June 26 that use of the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment (see 1954). New Jersey-born Sacramento atheist Mike Newdow, 49, has filed suit to have the words removed, calling himself the founding minister of the First Amendment Church of True Science (FACTS), and vows to challenge use of the words "In God We Trust" on U.S. coins and paper money. Congressmen and clergymen rush to go on record as condemning the court's decision, but few believe that anyone utters the two words as anything more than a non-religious rote exercise.
An executive order signed by President Bush at Philadelphia December 12 opens federal contracts to bidding by religious groups in a move that circumvents congressional opposition to his "faith-based initiative." He has been promoting the issue since his second week in office and succeeded in the House, but some senators have raised objections on grounds that giving religious groups access to government money violated the Constitution's First Amendment requirement for separation of church and state. "The days of discriminating against religious groups just because they are religious are coming to an end," says Bush. His condemnation of Sen. Lott's racial remarks overshadows news of his executive order, but although he receives lots of applause and "amens," fierce debate on the issue continues.
The No Child Left Behind Act (Elementary and Secondary Education Act) signed into law by President Bush January 8 allocates $26.5 billion for public K-12 education (a 20 percent increase over last year's appropriation) while mandating that states establish tough new academic standards developed by a bipartisan team of legislators and intended to improve teacher quality, eliminate the achievement gap between rich students and poor ones, and make schools safer, but critics have opposed federal intervention in what has always been a state and local province. The House of Representatives will reduce the appropriation by $6 billion, it will cut spending next year for the Head Start program created in 1965, lack of federal funding will make it hard for state school officials to meet the law's mandates, and in many cases they will have to increase class sizes, charge students high fees to join athletic teams, and ask families to contribute to basic supplies such as paper, pencils, even soap. The new legislation is based on "reforms" credited to Secretary of Education Rod Paige while he was superintendent of schools at Houston, but evidence will emerge that schools in his district falsified records to inflate test scores, ignored dropouts even when half of students failed to graduate, and allowed students to receive high-school diplomas even when they had not received proper education.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules 5 to 4 in favor of school vouchers June 27 (Zelman v. Simmons-Harris). The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment has led most state constitutions to forbid use of public funding for religious and private schools, 28 states have rejected voucher proposals, President Bush has favored them, Ohio established a pilot program in 1996 to provide educational choices for parents of children in the Cleveland City School District (some 3,700 of the 75,000 pupils in the district use vouchers of up to $2,250 to attend private school), Milwaukee has a similar program (10,800 pupils there receive vouchers averaging $5,504), many minority parents favor vouchers as an alternative to the failing public-school systems, but the vast majority of American children enjoy fairly good free public education; critics of the Court's decision say it will take money away from public schools (whose teachers generally earn more than those at parochial schools), will weaken the separation of Church and State as prescribed by the First Amendment, and open the possibility that schools funded by taxpayers will indoctrinate pupils in religious dogma.
The U.S. Supreme Court upholds widespread use of random drug testing in public schools by a 5-to-4 ruling handed down June 27 in a case involving a rural Oklahoma school district.
The Arab Human Development Report produced by Muslim social scientists with United Nations financing sparks debate by giving details on how much lack of education, freedom, and female empowerment have cost the Arab world (see 2001): the combined Gross Domestic Product of the 22 Arab states is less than that of Spain, the Arab Middle East has only 18 computers per 1,000 people (the global average is 78.3), only 1.6 percent of the people have Internet access, only 371 Arabs per million work on research and development (the global rate is 979 per million), 25 percent of graduates from Arab universities with B.A. degrees emigrated in 1995 to 1996, and 15,000 medical doctors left the Arab world from 1998 to 2000.
The Imperial War Museum North opens in July at Manchester, England, where architect Daniel Libeskind has designed a dramatic, aluminum-clad structure beside the 19th-century Manchester Ship Canal.
Educational Testing Service founder Henry Chauncey dies at his Shelburne, Vt., home December 3 at age 97, having made the SAT a household word. Thousands of colleges and universities base their admission policies largely on scholastic achievement test results.
Pakistani terrorists kidnap 38-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl at Karachi January 23 and later slit his throat, shocking the world with their barbarity.
CanWest Global Communications executive David Asper dismisses Ottawa Citizen publisher Russell Mills June 16, raising a storm of criticism (see 2000). Mills has been with the Citizen for 31 years and been publisher for 13, the Winnipeg-based company says he was fired because he allowed the opinions of the editorial board to affect news coverage, Mills says he was fired because he ran an editorial calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Chrétien, observers note that the Asper family has earlier dismissed columnists critical of Chrétien and of Israel, both of whom have received strong support in editorials written at the Winnipeg offices and published weekly in all CanWest papers.
Broadcast journalist Howard K. Smith dies at Bethesda, Md., February 15 at age 87; TV and film producer Edgar J. Scherick of leukemia at Los Angeles December 3 at age 78; ABC TV producer Roone Arledge of cancer at New York December 5 at age 71.
The U.S. first-class postal rate jumps to 37¢ per ounce June 30, up from the 34¢ it has been since January of last year.
Voicemail inventor and entrepreneur Gordon Matthews dies of a stroke at a Dallas hotel February 23 at age 65, having left VMX in 1989 and retired to Austin (the company was later sold to Lucent Technologies and then spun off as an independent firm named Avaya, but PC-based voice processing boards made by other companies have permitted development of cheaper voicemail); satellite builder Gilmore T. Schjeldahl dies at Lenox, Mass., March 10 at age 89; satellite communications pioneer John R. Pierce of pneumonia at Mountain View, Calif., April 2 at age 92. So-called Pierce Guns (vacuum tubes that transmit electrons) are now used routinely in satellites and in all linear-beam microwave tubes.
Columnist Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer) dies of multiple myeloma (bone-marrow cancer) at her Chicago home June 22 at age 83. More than 1,200 newspapers worldwide with a readership of 90 million have been carrying her advice; publisher and philanthropist Walter H. Annenberg dies at Wynnewood, Pa., October 1 at age 94; newspaper executive Bernard H. Ridder Jr. at his San Mateo, Calif., home October 10 at age 85; Der Spiegel publisher Rudolf Augstein of pneumonia at Hamburg November 7 at age 79.
Nonfiction: A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Irish-born journalist and educator Samantha Power, 32, who writes of U.S. passivity while Turks murdered Armenians, the Khmer Rouge murdered Cambodians, Iraqis gassed Kurds, Bosnian Serbs slaughtered Muslims, and Rwandan Hutus massacred Tutsi; Bush at War by journalist Bob Woodward, now 59, who is sympathetic to the president but has found Bush's cabinet members pushing for war against Iraq; What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response by Bernard Lewis, now 86; The Two Faces of Islam by Stephen Schwartz; The Structure of Evolutionary Theory by Stephen Jay Gould; Master of the Senate by Robert Caro (third volume in a biography of Lyndon B. Johnson); An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 by Rick Atkinson; The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy by Strobe Talbott; Brown by Richard Rodriguez; The Bookseller of Kabul by Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad, whose book is translated into several languages; Globalization and Its Discontents by Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz, who notes that globalization in the 1970s and 1980s "helped hundreds of million of people attain higher standards of living, beyond what they, or most economists, thought imaginable," but that since 1990 the number of people living on less than $2 per day has risen from fewer than 2.9 billion to 3 billion: "The critics of globalization accuse Western countries of hypocrisy, and the critics are right"; On Globalization by George Soros supports globalization in principle but says, "International trade and global financial markets are very good at generating wealth, but they cannot take care of other social needs, such as the preservation of peace, alleviation of poverty, protection of the environment, labor conditions, or human rights"; One World: The Ethics of Globalization by philosopher Peter Singer; Memoir by David Rockefeller; Always Right: Selected Writings of Midge Decter by Decter; Slander: Liberal Lies about the American Right by Ann Coulter, who comes under fire for allegedly distorting evidence used to support her conclusions but hits the top of the New York Times best-seller list and gains widespread exposure on right-wing television shows; Oh, The Things I Know by Al Franken.
Author Michael Young dies at London January 14 at age 86, having coined the term meritocracy; philosopher Robert Nozick dies of stomach cancer at Cambridge, Mass., January 23 at age 63; author Claude Brown of a lung condition at New York February 2 at age 64; sociologist-author David Riesman at Binghamton, N.Y., May 10 at age 92; educator-author Eda LeShan of kidney failure at her Riverdale, N.Y., home March 2 at age 79; Barbara Grizzuti Harrison of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at a New York hospice April 24 at age 67 (she has smoked up to six packs of cigarettes per day); evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould dies of cancer at his New York home May 20 at age 60 (his incurable abdominal mesothelemia was diagnosed in 1982); historian R. R. Palmer dies at his Newtown, Pa., home June 11 at age 93; Stephen E. Ambrose of lung cancer at Bay St. Louis, Miss., October 13 at age 66; philosopher-political theorist John Rawls of heart failure at his Lexington, Mass., home November 24 at age 82; author Dee Brown at his Little Rock, Ark., home December 12 at age 94.
Fiction: Atonement by Ian McEwan; Spies by Michael Frayn; Crabwalk by Günter Grass is about Germany's wartime suffering, guilt, and the tragic sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff in 1945; Baudolino by Umberto Eco; A House Unlocked by Penelope Lively; The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith; Not the End of the World (stories) by Kate Atkinson; The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter, who has received a $4 million advance from publishing house Alfred Knopf for two novels; July, July by Tim O'Brien; The Lovely Bones by New York-born California novelist Alice Sebold, 39; The Dive from Clausen's Pier by California-born novelist Ann Packer, 42; That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx; Blessings by Anna Quindlen; Quentins by Maeve Binchy; Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros; Prey by Michael Crichton; One Door Away from Heaven by Dean R. Koontz; The Pursuit by Johanna Lindsey; Without Fail by Lee Child; Basket Case and Hoot by Carl Hiaasen; The Beach House and Four Blind Mice by James Patterson, whose blockbuster novels (sometimes written with collaborators) earn him $50 million per year; The Little Friend by Donna Tartt; Bad Boy Brawley Brown by Walter Mosley; Hard Eight by Janet Evanovich; Q is for Quarry by Sue Grafton; Jolie Blon's Bounce by James Lee Burke; Reversible Errors by Scott Turow.
Nobel novelist Camilo José Cela dies at Madrid January 17 at age 85; novelist Thomas Flanagan of a heart attack at his Berkeley, Calif., home March 21 at age 78; Richard Bradford of lung cancer at his Santa Fe, N.M., home March 23 at age 69; science-fiction writer Damon Knight at Eugene, Ore., April 15 at age 79; Lois Gould at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center May 29 at age 70; Maritta Wolff at her Los Angeles home July 1 at age 83; Chaim Potok of cancer at his Merion, Pa., home July 23 at age 73; novelist-playwright Jan de Hartog at Houston September 24 at age 88.
Poetry: Voodoo Shop by Ruth Padel; Nine Horses: Poems by Billy Collins; Rhapsody in Plain Yellow by Marilyn Chin.
Poet and political activist June Jordan dies of breast cancer at her Berkeley, Calif., home June 14 at age 65; Kenneth Koch of leukemia at his Manhattan apartment July 6 at age 77.
The 80-year-old magazine Poetry hears in late November from lawyers for Eli Lilly heiress Ruth Lilly, 87, that she has made a will bequeathing $100 million to the Chicago-based publication, which politely rejected her poems for years. She was adjudged mentally incompetent more than 20 years ago, Poetry's annual budget has been $600,000, its circulation has been about 12,000, its staff has numbered four, and it has paid contributors $2 per line ($28 for a sonnet).
Juvenile: Zathura by Chris Van Allsburg; Lemony Snicket: An Unauthorized Biography by Lemony Snicket; David Gets in Trouble and Duck on a Bike by David Shannon; Little Yau by Janell Cannon.
Astrid Lindgren dies at her Stockholm home January 28 at age 94; Carol Fenner of cancer at Battle Creek, Mich., February 16 at age 72; Mildred Benson at Toledo, Ohio, May 28 at age 96, having written 23 Nancy Drew books under the pen name Carolyn Keene; poet-playwright Dorothy Hewett of breast cancer at Springwood, Australia, August 25 at age 79.
New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) closes May 22 in west 53rd Street (it will be torn down after 63 years and reopen in 2004 with a large new building). MoMA Queens (QNS) opens June 29 in the former Swingline staple factory at 33rd Street and Queens Boulevard in Long Island City, just across the street from a No. 7 subway station; the 160,000-square-foot plant has been painted bright blue and reconfigured for its new, temporary role (see 2004).
Painter Larry Rivers dies of liver cancer at his Southampton, L.I., home August 14 at age 78; surrealist Roberto Matta at Tarquinia, Italy, November 23 at age 91.
Sculpture: The Irish Hunger Memorial opens July 16 in Battery Park City on the Hudson River, where New York sculptor Brian Tolle, 38, has replicated a 96 by 170-foot field on a giant concrete slab that rises up and tilts to a height of 25 feet. Containing 62 plants native to County Mayo and dotted with stones from each of Ireland's 32 counties, it includes a roofless stone cottage and texts evoking the horrors of the famine that devastated Ireland from 1845 to 1852. Niki de Saint Phalle dies of pulmonary failure at San Diego May 21 at age 71; Richard Lippold at Roslyn, N.Y., August 22 at age 87; Amilcar de Castro at Belo Horizonte, Brazil, November 22 at age 82.
Portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh dies following surgery at Boston July 13 at age 93.
Theater: The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? by Edward Albee 3/10 at New York's John Golden Theater, with Bill Pullman, Mercedes Ruehl, 309 perfs.; Top Dog/Underdog by Kentucky-born playwright Suzan-Lori Parks 4/7 at New York's Ambassador Theater, 144 perfs. Now 38, Parks becomes the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for drama; A Few Stout Individuals by John Guare 5/12 at New York's off-Broadway Signature Theater in West 42nd Street, with Donald Moffat as Ulysses S. Grant in his dying days.
Actress Irene Worth dies at New York March 11 at age 85; Back Stage theatrical newspaper founder Ira Eaker at Tamarac, Fla., June 26 at age 80; producer-director Joan Littlewood at the London home of an assistant September 20 at age 87; playwright Frederick Knott at New York December 18 at age 86.
Television: The Osbournes 3/2 on MTV with Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne as a Beverly Hills couple in a "reality" show with countless vulgarities bleeped out; American Idol 6/11 on Fox, with Georgia-born host Ryan Seacrest, 27, and three judges who include Briton Simon Cowell looking for a new pop music star, with viewers helping to select winners in a "reality" show based on Pop Idol seen on Britain's ITV (see 2001); Monk 7/12 on USA with Green Bay, Wis.-born actor Tony Shalhoub, 48, as former police detective Adrian Monk; CSI: Miami 9/23 on CBS with David Caruso, Kim Delaney; 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter 9/24 on ABC with John Ritter; Life with Bonnie 10/1 on ABC with Bonnie Hunt, David Alan Grier; American Dreams 10/6 on NBC with Arlen Escarpata, Brittany Snow, Vanessa Lengles, Will Estes.
Actor John Thaw ("Chief Inspector Moss") dies of throat cancer at his Wiltshire home February 21 at age 60; onetime Goon Show radio comedian Spike Milligan of kidney failure at his Sussex home February 27 at age 83; soap opera queen Mary Stuart of a stroke at her New York apartment February 28 at age 76, having suffered from gastric and bone cancer; former NBC TV executive Sylvester "Pat" Weaver dies at his Santa Barbara, Calif., home March 15 at age 93, having created the Today and Tonight shows half a century ago; comedian Milton Berle dies of colon cancer at his Los Angeles home March 27 at age 93; actor Robert Urich of synovial cell sarcoma at Thousand Oaks, Calif., April 16 at age 55; playwright Reginald Rose at Norwalk, Conn., at age 81; actor Leo McKern (Rumpole of the Bailey) at Bath July 23 at age 82; children's television pioneer Paul Tripp at his native New York September 4 at age 91.
Films: Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor's About Schmidt with Jack Nicholson, Kathy Bates; Michael Moore's documentary Bowling for Columbine questions why the United States has so many more gun-related homicides than any other country; Todd Haynes's Far from Heaven with Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid; Steven Spielberg's Minority Report with Tom Cruise; Roman Polanski's The Pianist with Adrien Brody as Wladyslaw Szpilman; Hayao Mayazuki's Spirited Away (animated); Pedro Almodóvar's Talk to Her (Hable con Ella) with Leonor Watling, Rosario Flores, Adolfo Fernández, Dario Gradinetti, Javier Cámara; Alfonso Cuarón's Y Tu Mamá También. Also: Spike Jonze's Adaptation with Nicholas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper; Denzel Washington's Antwone Fisher with Washington, Derek Luke; Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can with Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen; Fernando Meirelles's City of God (Cidale de Deus) with Matheus Nachtergaele, Seu Jorge (about street gangs in Rio); Martin Scorsese's The Gangs of New York with Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Liam Neeson; Miguel Arteta's The Good Girl with Jennifer Aniston, Jake Gyllenhaal; Stephen Daldry's The Hours with Nicole Kidman (as Virginia Woolf), Meryl Streep, Ed Harris, Julianne Moore; Joel Zwick's My Big Fat Greek Wedding with John Corbett, Nia Vardalos; Phillip Noyce's The Quiet American with Michael Caine; Phillip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence with Aborigine actress Everlyn Sampi; Liliani Cavani's Ripley's Game with John Malkovich, Dougray Scott, Lena Headey; Sam Mendes's Road to Perdition with Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Daniel Craig; Nicholaus Philibert's To Be and To Have (Etre et Avoir) with teacher George Lopez and children aged 4 to 10 in a documentary about a single-classroom village school in the Auvergne; Spike Lee's 25th Hour with Edward Norton. Plus: Chris Columbus's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets with Daniel Radcliffe; Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers with Elijah Wood, Ian McKellan, Viggo Mortensen.
Actor Harold Russell dies of a heart attack at Needham, Mass., January 29 at age 88; animator-director Chuck Jones of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Road Runner, and Wile E. Coyote fame of congestive heart failure at his Corona del Mar, Calif., home February 21 at age 89; director Billie Wilder of pneumonia at his Beverly Hills, Calif., home the night of March 27 at age 95; comedian Dudley Moore of a brain disorder at Plainfield, N.J., March 27 at age 66; director Yves Robert at Paris May 10 at age 81; Hollywood's last mogul Lew Wasserman at Beverly Hills June 3 at age 89; actress Signe Hasso at Los Angeles June 7 at age 91; actress Katy Jurado at Cuernavaca July 5 at age 78; director John Frankenheimer at Los Angeles July 6 at age 72; actor Rod Steiger of kidney failure at Los Angeles July 9 at age 77; Kim Hunter of a heart attack at her Manhattan apartment September 11 at age 79; Richard Harris of lymphatic cancer at London September 25 at age 72; Phyllis Calvert at London October 8 at age 87; Marianne Hoppe at Berlin October 23 at age 93; Raf Vallone at Rome October 31 at age 86; comedian Eddie Bracken at Montclair, N.J., November 14 at age 87; James Coburn of a heart attack at Los Angeles November 18 at age 74; director Karel Reisz of a blood disorder outside London November 25 at age 76; director George Roy Hill of Parkinson's disease complications at his New York home December 27 at age 81.
Broadway musicals: Sweet Smell of Success 3/14 at the Martin Beck Theater, with John Lithgow as gossip columnist J. J. Hunsecker (based on the late Walter Winchell), music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Craig Carmela, book by John Guare, 109 perfs.; Thoroughly Modern Millie 4/18 at the Marquis Theater, with Sutton Foster as the Kansas girl who comes to New York in 1922, three Elmer Bernstein songs from George Roy Hill's 1967 film of the same name, four 1920s standards, 11 new songs by Jeanine Tesori, lyrics by Dick Scanlan; Movin' Out 10/24 at the Richard Rodgers Theater, with Michael Cavanaugh, music and lyrics by Billy Joel, choreography by Twyla Tharp.
Broadway lyricist Adolph Green dies at his Manhattan home October 24 at age 87; actress-director-playwright Vinnette Carroll of diabetes and heart disease at her Fort Lauderhill, Fla., home November 5 at age 80.
Popular songs: Slicker Than Your Average (CD) by Craig David; Come Away with Me (CD) by New York-born singer Norah Jones, 23, a daughter of sitarist Ravi Shankar; Home (CD) by the Dixie Chicks includes the single "Travelin' Soldier." Under Construction by rap artist Missy Elliott includes the singles "Work It" and "Gossip Folks."
Singer-songwriter Peggy Lee dies of a heart attack in her sleep at her Los Angeles home January 21 at age 81; punk rock pioneer Dee Dee Ramone (Douglas Glenn Colvin) of an apparent heroin overdose at Los Angeles June 5 at age 50; songwriter Matt Dennis at Riverside, Calif., June 21 at age 88; bass player John Entwistle of the Who of an apparent heart attack at Las Vegas June 27 at age 57; singer Rosemary Clooney of lung cancer at Beverly Hills, Calif., June 30 at age 74; folk music collector Alan Lomax at Sarasota, Fla., July 19 at age 87; disk jockey Jam Master Jay (Jason Mizell) is murdered October 30 at age 37 in a lounge at his Queens, N.Y., studio; songwriter Buddy Kaye dies at Rancho Mirage, Calif., November 21 at age 84; Noel Regney at Brewster, N.Y., November 24 at age 80; pianist-composer Mal Waldron of cancer at Brussels December 2 at age 77.
Former Metropolitan Opera soprano Eileen Farrell dies of circulatory ailments at Park Ridge, N.J., March 23 at age 82; former tenor Sandor Konya at his home on the Spanish island of Ibiza May 20 at age 78; Santa Fe Opera founder John Crosby following an appendectomy at Palm Springs, Calif., December 15 at age 76.
Singapore's $343 million Esplanade theater complex opens on the waterfront October 12 with a concert hall whose acoustics have been designed by U.S. expert Russell Johnson, now 78; a 2,000-seat auditorium, restaurants, and shops inside a distinctive, aluminum-clad structure designed by a local architectural firm. Ticket prices are subsidized (the cheapest are about $23); the London Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, diva Jessye Norman, and trumpet player Winton Marsalis all perform in the Esplanade's opening 3-week festival.
The New England Patriots win Super Bowl XXXVI at New Orleans February 3, defeating the St. Louis Rams 20 to 17, but onetime college football star Jay Berwanger dies at his Oak Brook, Ill., home June 26 at age 88, having won the first Heisman Trophy in 1935. Onetime NFL quarterback Johnny Unitas dies of a heart attack at suburban Baltimore September 11 at age 69.
Golfing legend Sam Snead dies at his Hot Springs, Va., home May 23 at age 89.
Brazil wins the World Cup in football (soccer) June 30, defeating Germany 2 to 0 at Yokohama under the leadership of 25-year-old Ronaldo, who scores both goals to give his team an unprecedented fifth World Cup victory.
Lleyton Hewitt wins in men's singles at Wimbledon, Serena Williams in women's singles; Pete Sampras wins in men's singles at the U.S. Open, Williams in the women's.
Baseball legend Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox dies of cardiac arrest at Inverness, Fla., July 5 at age 83; former St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Enos Slaughter following colon and stomach surgery at Durham, N.C., August 12 at age 86.
The 42-year-old Anaheim Angels win their first World Series, defeating the San Francisco Giants 4 games to 3.
Basketball innovator Hank Luisetti dies at San Mateo, Calif., December 17 at age 86.
The Walt Disney Studios theme park opens in mid-March adjacent to the 10-year-old EuroDisney (now called Disneyland Paris) at Marne la Vallée with "virtual" tour guides such as Jeremy Irons, Natasja Kinski, and Isabella Rosselini speaking in their native languages. Built at a cost of $532.9 million and only 39.1 percent owned by Burbank, Calif.-based Walt Disney Co., the park pays homage to European film making since the 1890s. Its operators hope to increase attendance at the two parks from last year's 12.3 million visitors to as many as 17 million.
Cosmetician Princess Marcella Borghese dies at her Montreux home in Switzerland January 19 at age 90; fashion designer Pauline Trigère at her Upper East Side Manhattan home February 13 at age 93; Barbie doll creator Ruth Handler at Los Angeles April 27 at age 85; designer Bill Blass of throat cancer at his New Preston, Conn., home June 12 at age 79.
Britain's Princess Margaret suffers a stroke and dies at London February 9 at age 71; the "Queen Mum" Elizabeth dies in the Royal Lodge at Windsor Palace March 30 at age 101; John Robert Russell, 13th duke of Bedford, at Santa Fe., N.M., October 25 at age 85, having opened his Woburn Abbey family seat in Bedfordshire to the public in 1955.
Mexican authorities arrest drug kingpin Benjamin Arellano Félix at his home in Puebla March 9. Now 49, Arrelano and five brothers started a gang 20 years ago that became a cartel, selling cocaine from Peru and Colombia across Mexico and throughout much of the United States, along with heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana. Arrelano has been under indictment at San Diego on 10 counts of drug trafficking, money laundering, and aiding and abetting crimes of violence. Police in Minnesota, Colorado, and California arrested 22 suspected associates March 8, and Arrelano confirms that a man shot at Mazatlán February 10 was his 37-year-old brother Ramón (the notorious enforcer's corpse disappeared).
A shooting spree at the Johann Gutenberg High School in Erfurt, Germany, May 3 leaves 17 people dead, including 12 teachers, two students, a school administrator, a policeman, and the black-clad former student Robert Steinhauser, 19, who was expelled in February for forging doctors' signatures on absence notes and turns his pistol on himself.
Attorney General John Ashcroft issues a statement in May contending that the Second Amendment to the Constitution "broadly protects the rights of individuals" to own firearms, thereby giving support to the National Rifle Association whose large financial contributions helped elect President Bush in 2000. Gun-control advocates express dismay at Ashcroft's interpretation of an ambiguously worded amendment written in a time of flintlocks.
Mafia boss Joseph Bonanno dies at Tucson May 11 at age 97, having created a Brooklyn, N.Y., criminal empire in 1931 that grew in 30 years to cover much of Canada, Arizona, and California. He retired in 1963, was convicted for the first time at age 75, served 1 year for trying to block a grand jury investigation into money laundering, and served another 14 months in 1985 and 1986 after refusing to testify in a federal racketeering case at New York; John Gotti Sr. dies of cancer at a federal prison in Springfield, Mo., June 10 at age 61.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules 6 to 3 June 20 in Atkins v. Virginia that a "national consensus" rejects capital punishment for mentally-retarded offenders, generally meaning those with an I.Q. of 70 or less (Japan remains the only nation where such executions are legal). The court rules 7 to 2 June 24 in Ring v. Arizona that only a jury, not a judge, can make a convicted murderer subject to the death penalty.
Britain's home secretary David Blunkett announces July 10 that the government will relax its laws against smoking marijuana: as of July 2003, possession will no longer be an arrestable offense, and until then police will merely seize the drug and issue warnings, although anyone smoking outside a school or in the presence of children will continue to be subject to arrest, and so-called "marijuana cafés" where cannabis is sold and used openly will remain illegal and will be shut down when discovered. Use of cannabis has increased sharply in the past 20 years; 20 to 25 percent of Britons smoke it on a regular basis, about the same percentage as in Denmark, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Spain.
A mysterious sniper guns down a 55-year-old man at Wheaton, Md., October 2 and continues random killings in the Washington, D.C., suburbs for 3 weeks, forcing schools to lock down and postpone outdoor athletic events, terrorizing the area, and crowding other news off radio stations and television channels. Targets include men, women, and a 13-year-old boy, blacks and whites who range in age up to 72; by the time the shootings end October 22 the death toll has reached 10, with three wounded. Police acting on a tip arrest two suspects October 24 as they sleep in their 1990 Chevrolet Caprice at a rest stop off a Maryland highway: Jamaican-born army veteran John Allen Muhammad (originally Williams), 41, and John Lee Mulvo, 17, have a semi-automatic rifle in the trunk of the car and have allegedly drilled a hole in the trunk door that permits a gun to be fired through it by a sniper lying prone on the car floor.
The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels opens at Los Angeles on a 5.5-acre site near the Hollywood Freeway. Designed by Madrid-based architect Rafael Moneo, 65, and built of adobe colored concrete, it is 333 feet long, rises 95 feet, and can seat 3,000 people.
Tokyo's 37-story Marounouchi Building opens September 6 midway between the Imperial Palace and Tokyo Station. Nearly 600 feet tall, the retailing and office complex is almost twice the height of any neighboring structure; windows facing the palace are sealed to prevent anything from being thrown at the palace.
President Bush announces a new U.S. approach to the issue of global warming February 14 (see 2001). He has consistently stated that there was no scientific justification for the specific emissions targets set forth in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and now calls for voluntary efforts to slow, not halt, the growth of greenhouse-gas emissions, with progress to be measured by tracking the growth of emissions relative to the growth of the economy. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief enforcement officer Eric V. Schaeffer resigns February 27 in protest against attempts by the White House and Energy Department to weaken federal clean-air policy. A 12-year EPA veteran, Schaeffer cites data supplied by the EPA to the Senate last year blaming emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide by utility companies for the loss of more than 1.5 million work days, more than 10,000 premature deaths, more than 5,100 emergency hospital visits, and 5,400 cases of chronic bronchitis. The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee holds hearings on the issue, and EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman testifies March 7 that it would be unwise for any utility facing major air-pollution charges to settle with the federal government before a federal appeals court rules on a bellwether case involving the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) (see Russia, 2003).
The 26-year-old, single-hulled Greek-owned tanker Prestige takes on more than 20 million gallons of heavy fuel oil at St. Petersburg