This Year in History:
2002
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
On January 8, 2002, President George W. Bush signs the No Child Left Behind Act into law. The sweeping update to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 created…
Explosions at a military depot in Lagos, Nigeria, trigger a stampede of fleeing people, during which more than 1,000 people are killed. The Ikeja armory was located just north of…
On January 29, 2002, in his first State of the Union address since the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush describes Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an “axis of…
On February 1, 2002, 38‑year‑old American journalist Daniel Pearl, the Southeast Asia bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, is murdered by a terror group in Pakistan. Weeks later, a…
On February 3, 2002, the New England Patriots shock football fans everywhere by defeating the heavily favored St. Louis Rams, 20‑17, to take home their first Super Bowl victory. Pats’…
President George W. Bush announces his plan to federally fund faith‑based initiatives. Bush started his day at a National Prayer Breakfast held in the ballroom of the Washington Hilton Hotel,…
On February 12, 2002, former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic goes on trial at The Hague, Netherlands, on charges of genocide and war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo. Milosevic served…
On this day in 2002, an Iranian passenger jet crashes into the side of a mountain, killing all 117 people on board. Iran Air Tours, a subsidiary of Iran Air,…
On February 15, 2002, the International Olympic Committee announces it has sufficient evidence of fraud by a French judge and awards a second gold medal in pairs figure skating at…
The defense rests in the trial of Andrea Yates, a 37‑year‑old Texas woman who confessed to killing her five young children by drowning them in a bathtub. Less than a…
On this day in 2002, 13‑year‑old Brittanie Cecil dies, two days after being struck in the head by a puck at a Columbus Blue Jackets ice hockey game. Cecil’s death…
On March 24, 2002, Halle Berry becomes the first Black woman to win the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of a struggling widow who falls in love with her…
On this day in 2002, the 74th annual Academy Awards ceremony is held at its brand new venue, the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. Completed the previous November, the $94…
On April 17, 2002, ABC airs the 10,000th episode of the daytime drama General Hospital, the network’s longest‑running soap opera and the longest‑running program ever produced in Hollywood. Created by…
As a struggling actress in Hollywood in the early 1990s, Nia Vardalos had been told to hide the fact that she was of Greek heritage, or to pretend that she…
On May 1, 2002, former NBA All‑Star Jayson Williams was indicted on a series of charges, including aggravated manslaughter, in connection with the shooting death of limousine driver Costas Christofi…
On May 4, 2002, an EAS Airline plane crashes into the town of Kano, Nigeria, killing 149 people. The Nigerian BAC 1‑11‑500 aircraft exploded in a densely populated section of…
Directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire in the title role, the eagerly awaited comic book adaptation Spider‑Man is released on Friday, May 3, 2002, and quickly becomes the…
On May 10, 2002, Robert Hanssen, a former FBI agent who intermittently sold state secrets to Russia over the course of two decades, receives his sentencing for espionage: life in…
The remains of former Federal Bureau of Prisons intern Chandra Levy are found on May 22, 2002, over a year after the 24‑year‑old was last seen at a health club.…
