January 2004

January 18, 2004

• Occupation of Iraq: At around 8 A.M. local time (5 A.M. GMT) in Baghdad, Iraq, an insurgent suicide bomber driving a car filled with explosives blows himself up while attempting to enter "Assassin's Gate." Early reports say that about 18 people, including 16 Iraqi civilians and two United States Department of Defense workers were killed, while another 56 Iraqi civilians were wounded.
• Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon praises the Israeli ambassador to Sweden, Zvi Mazel, for vandalising the artwork entitled "Snow White and The Madness of Truth" displayed at a Stockholm museum. The piece, created by an Israeli-born composer/musician, consists of a white float carrying a picture of a Palestinian suicide bomber in a pool of blood-coloured water. Mazel was caught on surveillance video disconnecting the electric power from the display and throwing a lamp into the water. Mazel says, "This exhibit was the culmination of dozens of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish events in Sweden."
• Ex-Australian cricketer and current Victorian coach David Hookes is rushed to hospital after being hit from behind during a brawl outside the Beaconsfield Hotel in St. Kilda, Melbourne. He is "technically dead" by the time paramedics arrive, but is revived, and is placed in Melbourne's January 17, 2004
• Planned NASA servicing missions for the Hubble Space Telescope are cancelled. Safety concerns are cited as the main reason behind the decision.
• Human cloning: Fertility expert Dr. Panos Zavos claims to have successfully transplanted a two week old embryo into a 35 year old woman. He said he had not done the act anywhere where "the spirit of the law" was against such a procedure.
• George Papandreou of Greece promised that he will suggest to sign a mutual agreement with Turkey for lowering their defense military expenses. (Greek).
• Protesters call for resignation of German Federal Police chief Ulrich Kersten: about 6,000 people demonstrates against moving Germany's Federal Police (BKA) headquarters from Wiesbaden to Berlin.

January 16, 2004

• Chen Shui-bian makes a televised address reiterating the Four Noes and One Without pledge and announcing the two questions for a referendum to coincide with the ROC presidential election, 2004 on March 20.
• U.S. President George W. Bush appoints Charles Pickering to the U.S. federal appeals court. His nomination was filibustered in the U.S. Senate, so President Bush made a recess appointment.
• Earthquake in Iran: Iran updates the death toll from the Bam earthquake to 41,000 people. The final figure could be as high as 45,000.
• The People's Republic of China arrests a top Hong Kong official into custody over suspicion of espionage for United Kingdom.
• Nunavut general election, 2004: Premier Paul Okalik of Nunavut, Canada, requests a dissolution of the territory's legislature and an election call for February 16.
• On or around this date, the United States national debt passes US$7 trillion.

January 15, 2004

• The United Nations sides with the United States on voting in Iraq. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and other UN officials call direct elections in advance of July 2004 impractical, due to continuing disorder in Iraq and other factors.
• 30,000 Shiite protesters in Basra call for immediate country-wide elections in Iraq, a move that would give them more power than the UN-backed plan for regional caucuses mandated by the US-led coalition
• South Korea's foreign minister Yoon Young-kwan resigns after a controversy in which his ministry was accused of diverging from the government's policy of increased independence from the United States.
• The European Union asks the World Trade Organization for authorization to impose trade sanctions against the United States in response to the U.S.'s anti-dumping scheme, which has been ruled illegal by the WTO.
• Canadian federal election, 2004: Former Ontario Health Minister Tony Clement declares his candidacy for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. Also confirmed is the candidacy of auto parts magnate Belinda Stronach, who will announce her entry into the leadership race next week.
• Italy has indicted three Germans, all former members of an SS Panzergrenadier Division, on charges of massacring 560 people in 1944 in the Italian village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema. The three Germans, Gerhard Sommer, 83; Alfred Schonenberg, 83; and Ludwig Sonntag, 80, are currently living in Germany. It is not clear whether Italy will request the three men's extradition from Germany.
• U.S. presidential election, 2004: Carol Moseley Braun drops out of the race and endorses Dr. Howard Dean, confirming rumors circulating the night before as she taped an appearance on The Daily Show.
• The date for the publication of the Hutton Inquiry's report into the death of British weapons scientist Dr David Kelly is announced as January 28, 2004.
• The creditors of ailing Finnish low-cost carrier Flying Finn have threatened to confiscate the airline's planes.
• Exploration of Mars: The Spirit Rover has rolled off its lander to start its exploration. The first journey was only three metres. It took the rover about 78 seconds, ending with the back of the rover being 0.7 metres from the lander.
• The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announces the release of the Composite Capability/Preference Profiles (CC/PP 1.0). W3C's new standard profiling language CC/PP provides a standardized format of the description of information that will allow Web-enabled devices to effectively communicate their capabilities to the desired server and aids in delivering Web content to broad range of devices.
• José Bono, a prominent Socialist Spanish politician, is recorded calling Tony Blair "a complete dickhead" (un gilipollas integral).
• Popeye, like Tintin, turns 75 this month.

January 14, 2004

• J.P. Morgan Chase strikes a $58 billion merger deal to buy Bank One to create the second-largest bank in the United States.
• Iraq and weapons of mass destruction: Tests performed by American and Danish military experts indicate no chemical agents are present in the "suspicious" mortar shells discovered in Iraq on January 9th.
• Self-confessed killer of Swedish FM Anna Lindh, 25 year old Mijailo Mijailovic, says during cross-examination in a Stockholm court that he heard voices in his head commanding him to attack Lindh when he encountered her in a Stockholm shopping mall 10 September last year. Lindh died the next day from the many stab wounds she received.
• Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Alan Greenspan said, "It's just a matter of time before we begin to see employment start to pick up quite significantly, as it always has in the past." Greenspan is also not worried about the fall of the dollar or the half trillion dollar U.S. trade deficit.
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
  • Reem Raiyshi, a Palestinian suicide bomber, kills four border guards at the Erez checkpoint. She is the first female suicide bomber used by Hamas. Four months ago Israel targeted Hamas leadership, including Ahmed Yassin, as a result Hamas halted all suicide bombing for four months.
  • Jack Kelley, USA TODAY foreign correspondent and a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize just two years ago, was forced to resign after the newspaper determined he repeatedly misled editors during an internal investigation into stories he wrote. Among the stories that are being investigated is one published Sept. 4, 2001, contains an account of an attack on Palestinians by 13 Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Mark Memmott, the reporter asked to investigate Kelley, said he could not find anyone with first-hand knowledge of the attack.
• A secondary school student in the Netherlands kills a teacher in his school cafeteria.
• Greek electronic game ban: Greek police raid Internet cafés in Larissa. 80 computers are taken by the police as evidence and 3 Internet café owners are arrested. (in Greek).
• Education in Greece: 114 University professors sign a document against George Papandreou's positions on private universities and their recognition (anagnorisi). (Greek)
• Jacques Delors referred to Prime Minister of Greece Costas Simitis, Prime Minister of Luxembourg Jean-Claude Juncker, and former Prime Minister of Belgium Jean Luc Dehaene as the top three candidates for the position of the President of the European Commission.
• A 45-year old Sudanese man travelling from Washington Dulles International Airport to aiport Dubai is arrested enroute at London's Heathrow Airport on suspicion of carrying 5 bullets in his coat pocket.
• U.S. President George W. Bush, in a speech at NASA headquarters, announces a plan to develop a new space vehicle to return humans to the moon by the year 2015 and proposes the retirement of the space shuttle fleet by 2010 along with a $1 billion funding increase for NASA.
• Enron Corporation: Former CFO Andrew Fastow and his wife Lea Fastow, former Assistant Treasurer, accept a plea agreement. Andrew Fastow will serve a ten-year prison sentence and forfeit $23.8 million. Lea Fastow will serve a five-month prison sentence and a year of supervised release, including five months of house arrest. Both will provide testimony against other Enron corporate officers.
• Turkey and Greece: 22 Turkish military aircrafts entered into the Greek Athens FIR. 5 of these aircrafts were loaded with ammunition. Greek aircrafts intercepted them. Source: Athens News Agency and in.gr. (Greek)

January 13, 2004

• Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Tom Hurndall, a British peace activist with the International Solidarity Movement, dies after being shot in the head by an Israeli soldier on April 11 2003. The Israeli government say that they may consider bringing manslaughter charges against the soldier; the man's family claim that he should be tried for murder.
• Education in Greece: Debate over the private universities issue and George Papandreou, junior's suggestions (see January 9) between New Democracy and Panhellenic Socialist Movement. (Greek)
• The Constitutional Court of Italy strikes down a law enacted to give Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi immunity from prosecution while in office.
• British serial killer Dr Harold Shipman is found dead in his cell.
• The Bichard Inquiry into events preceding the Soham murders formally opens
• Occupation of Iraq: A United States Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopter is shot down near the central Iraqi town of Habbaniya, but is able to land without casualties.
• A Yak-40 airliner en route from Termez in Uzbekistan crashes near the capital Tashkent, killing all 37 crew and passengers, including the U.N.'s top official in the country, Richard Conroy.
• Robin Cook says that the British Museum's Parthenon Marbles must be returned to Greece. (Greek), (English), (Background, English)

January 12, 2004

• The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announces the ten top United States patent recipients. For the 11th year in a row, IBM tops the list; the next three in the list are headquartered in Japan. Companies from the Netherlands (Philips) and Korea (Samsung) also make appearances.
• The U.S. State Department concludes that the Israeli attack on USS Liberty in 1967, although probably accidental, was an act of gross negligence and that Israel should be held responsible.
• Canadian federal election, 2004: Stephen Harper announces his entry into the race to lead the new Conservative Party of Canada. Earlier today, Jim Prentice drops out of the leadership contest, citing a lack of funds.
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Over 100,000 people rally in Tel Aviv to protest Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plans to withdraw from parts of Gaza and the West Bank, which would involve abandoning some Israeli settlements in those areas.
• The deadline for SCO Group to present evidence "with specificity" in the SCO v. IBM lawsuit expires
• IBM and Intel Set Up $10m SCO Defense Fund.
• Astronauts on board the International Space Station think that a leak in a hose used to stop the fogging of an Earth observation window was causing the slow loss of pressure in the station. Although it would have taken a couple of months for the crew to be in any danger, some equipment on the station was only rated to just below the normal pressure. Although the cause appears to have been located, ground controllers are still getting the crew to close the station into three sections to allow them to get baseline pressure readings and to make sure that there are no more leaks.
• Computer Associates says may face SEC civil action: Software company Computer Associates International Inc, which is under investigation by federal regulators over its accounting practices, says it may face civil charges for improper accounting of revenue in fiscal 2000.
• Iran's provincial governors are threatening to resign unless a decision by the conservative Guardian Council is reversed.
• Mars Exploration Rover Mission: The Spirit's air bags that cushioned its landing on Mars have been obstructing the vehicle's path, and this complication has postponed its exit of the launch vehicle until Wednesday or Thursday.
• The World Wildlife Fund-UK reports that the orangutan is in danger of becoming extinct within the next 20 years because of commercial logging and clearance for oil palm plantations.
• Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, religious leader of Iran, announces that he will not intervene in a growing political confrontation between progressives and hardliners after the Guardian Council, which he controls, barred thousands of candidates from running in upcoming Parliamentary elections (including 80 current members of Parliament).

January 11, 2004

• Exploration of Mars: NASA's Spirit rover now has its arm and all six of its wheels free, and only a single cable must be cut before it can turn and roll off its lander onto the soil of Mars. As that milestone is completed, scientists are taking opportunities to take extra pictures and gather other data.
• Occupation of Iraq:
  • U.S. military records show that attacks against coalition soldiers have decreased by 22% in the four weeks following the capture of Saddam Hussein.
  • More protests in Amarah take place. Demonstrators, many of them related to the victims of January 10, requested compensation. No significant violence reported.

January 10, 2004

• Occupation of Iraq: Protests in the city of Amarah because of unemployment occur. Police officers and soldiers open fire on demonstrators. Five or six are killed and one or eleven wounded.
• In publicity for a new book for which former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill is the primary source, 60 Minutes reveals O'Neill's claims that the Bush administration was making plans for an invasion of Iraq within days of Bush's inauguration. Bush officials note that regime change in Iraq had been official U.S. policy since 1998, three years before Bush took office. O'Neill, fired for his opposition to tax cuts, also characterized Bush as so disengaged in cabinet meetings that he "was like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people". On the positive side, O'Neill also described Bush as such a good listener that he (O'Neill) was able to give a non-stop monologue for nearly an hour in a one-on-one meeting.
• SCO v. IBM: SCO Group claims that it has has "low-level talks" with Google about a possible license agreement related to Linux.
• Iraq and weapons of mass destruction: On January 9, 2004, Danish troops discovered decade-old mortar rounds containing suspicious liquid buried in Southern Iraq. Initial tests now indicate that the rounds contain the banned chemical weapon blister gas. Final tests should be available in two days.
• A speed boat carrying illegal immigrants from Albania, bound for Italy broke down and capsized. 11 people survived, while as many as 21 died due to drowning and exposure. Two have been arrested by Albanian authorities for people smuggling, while other senior officials have been implicated in connection with the tragedy.

January 9, 2004

• Education in Greece: George Papandreou, junior talks about the possibility to allow private universities in Greece. (Greek)
• Turkey fully abolishes the death penalty.
• USA lowers the terrorism advisory level to yellow (elevated) from orange (high).
• Bangladesh bans books published by the Ahmadiyya movement, an Islamic sect.
• Exploration of Mars: Engineers at JPL decide to turn the Mars Spirit Rover around on its lander after it was found the airbags could not be retracted enough to allow it to move off in a forward direction. It is expected the rover will drive off sometime next week. The Rover has also stood up and deployed its front wheels.
• Two volcanoes erupt: the Piton de la Fournaise on Réunion Island, and the Volcán de Fuego near Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala. The eruption in Guatemala is not thought to be serious enough to require evacuations.
• In Guatemala City, fifteen people die and twenty are hurt when a public bus collides with a crane.
• Enron Corporation: Former Assistant Treasurer Lea Fastow and wife of Andrew Fastow, failed to respond to a plea agreement by the deadline. The offer would have allowed her to plead guilty in federal court to lesser charges and serve five months in return for her testimony. Her trial for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion is scheduled to start February 10.

January 8, 2004

• Levi Strauss & Co. shuts its last U.S. jeans sewing plant in San Antonio, Texas, ending all U.S. manufacturing as it shifts to a contract production model. The closure ends a "Made in the U.S.A." tradition dating back to the 1870s.
• The Queen Mary 2 is christened by Queen Elizabeth II.
• An RTÉ Prime Time investigation accuses the Garda Síochána, the Republic of Ireland's police force, of violent abuse of people arrested. Irish Minister of State Dick Roche accuses Gardaí of "torture" of one student beaten up in a Dublin police station, while a former judge accuses police of committing perjury in his courts. The Gardaí deny all allegations.

• The United States withdraws a group of 400 weapons inspectors from Iraq after finding nothing of substance. 1400 inspectors remain.
• Occupation of Iraq: Nine United States soldiers are reported killed after a Black Hawk helicopter makes an emergency landing near the central Iraqi town of Falluja.
• The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace publishes a report accusing the United States of "systematically misrepresenting" the threat posed by "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction".
• The New Jersey legislature passes a bill creating a domestic partnership status for same-sex couples, with many of the same legal rights as marriage. It becomes the fifth U.S. state to offer such a status to same-sex couples.

January 7, 2004

• In the United States, the Bush administration proposes a major reform of immigration law, creating a temporary worker program and giving legal status to both illegal and foreign workers for renewable three-year periods.
• The Supreme Court of Indonesia upholds the death sentence handed down to Bali bomber Amrozi. The 12 October, 2002 attacks killed 202 mainly holiday makers on the resort island of Bali.

• Costas Simitis, the prime minister of Greece and president of the ruling Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), after informing the country's president Costis Stephanopoulos, announced his resignation. At the same time he announced national elections for March 7, 2004, when PASOK will have a new president, expected to be George Papandreou. PASOK will be challenged by the New Democracy opposition led by Costas Caramanlis. See , , , (Greek) and , , , , (English).
• Exploration of Mars: Mars Express failed to hear any signal from the Beagle 2 spacecraft during its first pass over the landing site. This is major blow, but scientists have once again not given up all hope. They will attempt again tomorrow using a different communication mode. The Beagle 2 mission manager, Colin Pillinger, set February 7 as the day to abandon contact efforts. By that time Beagle 2 would have switched into an autotransmit mode after having not received any signal for over a month if it was still alive .
• A report from the International Monetary Fund expresses alarm regarding mounting budget deficits in the United States due to recession, tax cuts, and spending for the war on terrorism. The report says that the unprecedented level of external debt incurred poses "significant risks" not just for the United States but for the rest of the world. However, many outside economists note that other countries are also running large deficits and that underlying economic conditions in the U.S. are still robust.

• U.S.-led occupation of Iraq: Mortar attacks by Anti-American insurgents wound 35 U.S. soldiers at a military camp west of Baghdad. Six mortar rounds exploded around 6:45 p.m. local time.

January 6, 2004

• The man charged for the murder of Sweden's FM Anna Lindh on September 10, Mijailo Mijailovic, through his defence lawyer requests an interrogation to give critical details on the stabbing. Seemingly Mijailovic thereby confesses the assault.

• The Daily Mirror, a British tabloid, publishes the blacked out portion of a letter wherein Diana, Princess of Wales alleged that someone was trying to kill her. The relevant portion reads: "[M]y husband is planning 'an accident' in my car, brake failure & serious head injury in order to make the path clear for him to marry." The part "my husband" (referring to Charles, Prince of Wales) had been previously blacked out, and the word "him" replaced with "Charles" in transcripts of the letter released by Diana's butler, Paul Burrell. The revelation comes on the same day the inquest into the death of Diana and her lover Dodi Al-Fayed is officially opened.
• Pakistan is cited as the source of nuclear weapon technology supplied to Libya, Iran and North Korea. The components intercepted at sea by Italy en-route to Libya were fabricated in Malaysia. There is no evidence that the Pakistani government of President Pervez Musharraf knew about the transfer of technology of Libya.

• Pakistan and India have agreed to a new round of talks to settle the Kashmir dispute. The talks will be begin February 2004.
• Exploration of Mars: The first color images have been released from the Spirit rover on Mars. They are the highest resolution images ever taken on the surface of another planet. It has also been announced by NASA that they plan to name the rover's landing site on Mars "Columbia Memorial Station" in honor of the crew of STS-107.

January 5, 2004

• A British and a German Member of the European Parliament both receive letter bombs in the post. This follows an earlier letter bomb sent to the President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi.
• Ulster Unionist Party defector Jeffrey Donaldson and two other MLAs join Rev. Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party, pushing the DUP's numbers in the Northern Ireland Assembly to 33.
• Jaap de Hoop Scheffer of the Netherlands became the new Secretary General of NATO, replacing Britain's Lord Robertson.
• The United States begins tracking foreign arrivals according to the new United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) program.
• Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee meet face-to-face to discuss improving relations between their two countries.
• South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which comprises India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and the Maldives, signs the South Asia Free Trade Agreement, a draft agreement to eliminate tariffs by 2016.
• Norwegian prosecutors announce that they have abandoned their attempts to prosecute Jon Johansen for his release of the DeCSS DVD decryption software.

• Panhellenic Socialist Movement, the ruling political party of Greece, is about to change leadership. The official report is expected to be published on January 7, 2004. It is expected by many that the new leader will be George Papandreou, junior. See and (Greek)
• A potential local root vulnerability has been found in Linux 2.2, 2.4, and 2.6, and Linux Kernel developers have corrected the issue in 2.4 and 2.6; distributors are expected to offer the patches soon, for the benefit of those users who do not compile their own kernels.

January 4, 2004

• The Loya jirga adopts a new Constitution of Afghanistan
• A military court in Israel sentences five Israelis to one year in jail for refusing to serve in the military because of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. (Compare conscientious objector)
• Exploration of Mars: American Mars probe "Spirit" mission is successful and is sending back images. Spirit is alive after rolling to a stop on the surface of Mars; confirmed by NASA's Deep Space Network (9:00 pm PST).
• Mikhail Saakashvili becomes president-elect of the Republic of Georgia, following the Presidential elections. He had been widely expected to win following the November 23, 2003 ousting of President Eduard Shevardnadze.
• Bolivian Gas War: In a televised speech, Bolivian President Carlos Mesa announces that a national referendum will be held on March 28 to resolve the issue of how Bolivia's large natural gas reserves will be exploited.
• Britney Spears abruptly marries a childhood friend, Jason Allen Alexander, in a Las Vegas wedding chapel at 5:30 A.M.; by afternoon, the couple have arranged an annulment, which is expected to be made official when the courts reopen on Monday.

January 3, 2004

• A Boeing 737, Flight 604, flown by Egyptian charter company Flash Airlines headed for Cairo crashes into the Red Sea minutes after take-off from the holiday resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. All 148 people on board are killed, of whom more than 120 were French tourists. Though both United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak were in the area, neither were involved in the incident, contrary to initial reports.
• The BBC cancels the appearance of Coca Cola sponsorship credits in the music charts in its BBC ONE Top of the Pops show, after criticism from politicians and health campaigners that it would be promoting junk food and unhealthy drink products to teenagers.
• Ricardo Palmera, better known as Simon Trinidad, one of top seven Colombian rebel group, FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) is arrested in Ecuador.
• Exploration of Mars: The first of the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit, has successfully landed on the Martian surface with a "very strong signal" being received from the lander. It was a tense few minutes as no signal was received from the lander during the minutes while it bounced over the surface. People's Republic of China's fifth-largest brokerage is seized by China Securities Regulatory Commission and local authorities for "illegal and irregular management operations and disorderly management." The unusual move to clamp down China Southern Securities is a high-profile attempt to stem corruption in Mainland China.

January 2, 2004

• South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, comprised of foreign ministers from seven south Asian countries (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan) meeting in Islamabad agree to create the Stardust has successfully flown past Comet Wild 2 collecting samples that it will return to Earth in two years time. This is the first sample return mission to a comet and the first time that samples have returned to Earth from any celestial body since 1974. The spacecraft also took detailed images of the comet's icy nucleus.
• U.S. Representative Ralph Hall from Texas files for reelection and switches parties from Democrat to Republican.

January 1, 2004

• Ireland's Roman Catholic and Protestant boy scouts organisations merge after nearly a century of division, in spite of efforts by the Roman Catholic bishops to block the merger.
• State papers released under Britain's Thirty Year Rule suggest that the United States considered using force to seize oil fields in the Middle East during an oil embargo by Arab states in 1973. State papers also released reveal that, contrary to what was believed at the time, Princess Margaret of the United Kingdom would not have lost her title and Civil List payments if she had married Group Captain Peter Townsend, a divorced War hero in the 1950s.
• The Republic of Ireland takes over the presidency of the European Union, succeeding Italy, whose presidency is widely criticised as having been a failure due to the collapse of efforts to adopt a European constitution.
• Montreal Dorval International Airport is renamed Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.
• A British Airways flight from London to Washington, DC is canceled one day after the same flight is delayed for three hours on the tarmac at Dulles International Airport for security screening.
• Comparing planned United States finger-printing and photographic security controls on travelers from Brazil and other nations to Nazi actions, a Brazilian judge orders the fingerprinting of all arriving United States citizens in response.
• No leap second is added this year. This is the fifth year in a row without a leap-second after 28 years of adding leap-seconds to compensate for the slowing of the Earth's rotation.
• Haiti's bicentennial celebrations erupt in violence.

Past events by month

2003: January February March April May June July August September October November December
2002: January February March April May June July August September October November December