Youtube Playlist (click top right icon for songtitles)
January
- January 9 – iTunes is launched.
- January 13 – A 7.6 magnitude earthquake hits all of El Salvador, killing at least 800 people and leaving thousands homeless.
- January 15 – Wikipedia is launched.
- January 16 – Assassination of Laurent-Désiré Kabila: The President of the Congo is shot in his office and is rushed to Harare in Zimbabwe for medical treatment; his death will be announced two days later.
- January 20
- George W. Bush is sworn in as the 43rd president of the United States.
- Impeachment proceedings against Philippine President Joseph Estrada, accused of corruption, end prematurely and trigger the Second EDSA Revolution (“People Power II”). His Vice-president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo succeeds him as the 14th president of the Republic.
- January 21 – Taba Summit between Israel and its Arab opponents begins in Egypt.
- January 23 – Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident: Members of banned religious sect Falun Gong allegedly set themselves on fire; the facts are disputed.
- January 26 – The 7.7 Mw Gujarat earthquake shakes Western India with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), leaving 13,805–20,023 dead and about 166,800 injured.
February
- February 9 – Ehime Maru and USS Greeneville collision: The submarine USS Greeneville accidentally strikes and sinks the Japanese training vessel Ehime-Maru near Hawaii, resulting in nine deaths, including several students and teachers.
- February 12 – The NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touches down in the “saddle” region of 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
- February 13 – A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hits El Salvador, killing at least 400 people.
- February 16 – Iraq disarmament crisis: British and U.S. forces carry out bombing raids, attempting to disable Iraq‘s air defense network.
- February 18 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested for committing espionage. He will begin fifteen consecutive life sentences in a supermax prison.
- February 19 – The 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak begins.
March
- March 2 – The Taliban begins destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan.
- March 4 – The Hintze Ribeiro disaster in northern Portugal kills 59 people.
- March 23 – The deorbit of Russian space station Mir is carried out near Nadi, Fiji, with Mir falling into the South Pacific Ocean.
April
- April 1
- Hainan Island incident: A Chinese fighter jet collides with a U.S. EP-3E surveillance aircraft, which is forced to make an emergency landing in Hainan, China. The U.S. crew is detained for 10 days and the F-8 Chinese pilot, Wang Wei, goes missing and is presumed dead.
- In the Netherlands, the Act on the Opening up of Marriage goes into effect, allowing same-sex couples to marry, making this the first country in the world to legalize such unions in modern times.
- April 2 – Former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia President Slobodan Milošević surrenders to police special forces, to be tried on charges of war crimes.
- April 28 – Soyuz TM-32 lifts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying the first space tourist, American Dennis Tito.
May
- May 6 – Space tourist Dennis Tito returns to Earth aboard Soyuz TM-31. (Soyuz TM-32 is left docked at the International Space Station as a new lifeboat.)
- May 7 – In Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, an attempt is made to reconstruct the Ferhadija mosque. However, the ceremony results in mass riots by Serb nationalists, who beat and stone Bosnian Muslims.
- May 13 – Silvio Berlusconi wins the general election and becomes Prime Minister of Italy for the second time.
- May 22 – A large trans-Neptunian object (28978 Ixion) is found during the Deep Ecliptic Survey.
- May 24
- Sherpa Temba Tsheri, 15, becomes the youngest person to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
- Versailles wedding hall disaster in Jerusalem, Israel: a partial building collapse kills 23 people and injures 380 others.
June
- June 1
- Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal kills his father, the king, his mother and other members of the royal family with an assault rifle and then shoots himself in the Nepalese royal massacre. Dipendra, who briefly survives, automatically becomes King of Nepal.
- A Hamas suicide bomber kills 21, mostly teenagers, in the Dolphinarium disco in Tel Aviv, Israel.
- June 4 – Gyanendra ascends the throne of Nepal on the death of his nephew, Dipendra.
- June 7 – 2001 United Kingdom general election: Tony Blair and the Labour Party win a second landslide victory.
- June 15 – Declaration to establish the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is signed.
- June 19 – A missile hits a soccer field in northern Iraq (Tel Afr County), killing 23 and wounding 11. According to U.S. officials, it is an Iraqi missile that malfunctioned.
- June 21 – The world’s longest train is run by BHP Iron Ore between Newman and Port Hedland in Western Australia (a distance of 275 km (171 mi)); the train consists of 682 loaded iron ore wagons and 8 GE AC6000CW locomotives, giving a gross weight of almost 100,000 tonnes and moves 82,262 tonnes of ore; the train is 7.353 km (4.569 mi) long.
- June 23 – The 8.4 Mw southern Peru earthquake shakes coastal Peru with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). A destructive tsunami follows, leaving at least 75 people dead, and 2,687 injured.
July
- July 2 – The world’s first self-contained artificial heart is implanted in Robert Tools in the United States.
- July 4 – Vladivostok Air Flight 352 crashes on approach to landing at Irkutsk Airport, Russia, killing 145.
- July 9 – Gdańsk is flooded, 4 people die and about zl 200 million is estimated in losses.
- July 13 – The International Olympic Committee awards Beijing the right to host the 2008 Summer Olympics.
- July 16 – The People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation sign the 2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship (“Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation”).
- July 20–22 – The 27th G8 summit takes place in Genoa, Italy. Massive demonstrations are held against the meeting by members of the anti-globalization movement. One demonstrator, Carlo Giuliani, is killed by a policeman. Several others are badly injured during a police attack on a school used by the protesters as their headquarters.
- July 24
- Bandaranaike Airport attack: Tamil Tigers attack Bandaranaike International Airport in Sri Lanka, causing an estimated $500 million of damage.
- Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, deposed as the last Tsar of Bulgaria when a child, is sworn in as the democratically elected 48th Prime Minister of Bulgaria.
August
- August 6 – Erwadi fire incident: 28 mentally ill persons bound by chains are burnt to death at a faith-based institution at Erwadi, Tamil Nadu, India.
- August 8 – Albanian rebels ambush a convoy of the Army of the Republic of Macedonia near Tetovo, killing 10 soldiers.
- August 9 – A Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem is attacked by a Palestinian terrorist, who kills 15 civilians and injures 130.
- August 10 – In Angola, a train triggers a landmine, causing 252 deaths.
- August 21 – NATO decides to send a peace-keeping force to the Republic of Macedonia.
- August 24 – Air Transat Flight 236 runs out of fuel over the Atlantic Ocean (en route to Lisbon from Toronto) and makes an emergency landing in the Azores, all 306 people onboard survive.
- August 25 – 2001 Marsh Harbour Cessna 402 crash: Eight people, including singer Aaliyah and several members of her record company are killed as their overloaded aircraft crashes shortly after takeoff from Marsh Harbour Airport, The Bahamas.
- August 31–September 1 – The 2001 Vancouver TV realignment occurs in British Columbia, Canada.
- August 31 – The World Conference against Racism 2001 begins in Durban, South Africa.
September
- September 1 – Nakai, the first captive orca to be born as a result of artificial insemination, is born at SeaWorld San Diego.
- September 3 – The United States, Canada and Israel withdraw from the U.N. Conference on Racism because they feel that the issue of Zionism is overemphasized.
- September 4 – Tokyo DisneySea opens to the public as part of the Tokyo Disney Resort in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan.
- September 9
- A suicide bomber kills Ahmad Shah Massoud, military commander of the Afghan Northern Alliance.
- 68 people die of methanol poisoning in Pärnu County, Estonia.
- The Unix billennium is reached, marking the beginning of the use of 10-digit decimal Unix time stamps.
- September 10
- Donald Rumsfeld gives a speech regarding $2.3 trillion in Pentagon spending that cannot be accounted for. He identifies the Pentagon bureaucracy as the biggest threat to America.
- Antônio da Costa Santos, mayor of Campinas, Brazil is assassinated.
- Charles Ingram apparently wins £1 million on the British television game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, but the prize is cancelled after he is accused of cheating
- September 11 – Approximately 2,977 victims are killed or fatally injured in the September 11 attacks at the World Trade Center in New York City, The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and in rural Shanksville, Pennsylvania after American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 are hijacked and crash into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, American Airlines Flight 77 is hijacked and crashes into the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93 is hijacked and crashes into grassland in Shanksville, as a result of passengers fighting to regain control of the airplane. The World Trade Center towers collapse as a result of the crashes.
- September 14 – Historic National Prayer Service held at Washington National Cathedral for victims of the September 11 attacks. A similar service is held in Canada on Parliament Hill, the largest vigil ever held in the nation’s capital.
- September 20 – In an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people, U.S. President George W. Bush declares a “War on Terror“.
- September 21
- In Toulouse, France, the AZote Fertilisant chemical factory explodes, killing 29 and seriously wounding over 2,500.
- Deep Space 1 flies within 2,200 km of Comet Borrelly.
- September 27 – Zug massacre: In Zug, Switzerland, Friedrich Leibacher shoots 18 citizens, killing 14 and then himself.
October
- October 1 – Militants attack the state legislature building in Srinagar, Kashmir, killing 38.
- October 2 – Swissair seeks for bankruptcy protection and grounds its entire fleet, resulting in over 230 flights cancelled and stranding 18,000 people worldwide.
- October 4 – Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 was shot down over the Black Sea en route from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Novosibirsk, Russia; all 78 people on board are killed.
- October 7 – War in Afghanistan: In response to the September 11 attacks, the United States invades Afghanistan, with participation from other nations, thus officially beginning the War on Terror.
- October 8 – Linate Airport disaster: A twin-engine Cessna and Scandinavian Airlines jetliner collide in heavy fog during takeoff from Milan, Italy, killing 118 people.
- October 15 – NASA‘s Galileo spacecraft passes within 180 kilometres (110 mi) of Jupiter‘s moon Io.
- October 17 – Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze’evi becomes the first Israeli minister to be assassinated in a terrorist attack.
- October 19 – An Indonesian fishing boat, the SIEV X, sinks on route to Christmas Island, killing 353 people, mostly asylum seekers.
- October 23
- The Provisional Irish Republican Army commences disarmament after peace talks.
- The iPod is first introduced by Apple.
- October 25 – Citing connotations with the Rwandan genocide, the government of Rwanda adopts a new national flag for the country.
November
- November – VAG, the public transport operator in Nuremberg, Germany, begins testing a hybrid capabus which uses a diesel-electric drive system with electric double-layer capacitors.
- November 2 – The Glocal Forum, leading international organization in the field of city-to-city cooperation, is established by Israeli politician Uri Savir.
- November 4 – Hurricane Michelle hits Cuba, destroying crops and thousands of homes.
- November 7 – Sabena, the national airline of Belgium, goes bankrupt.
- November 10
- 2001 Australian federal election: John Howard‘s Liberal/National Coalition Government is re-elected with a slightly increased majority, defeating the Labor Party led by Kim Beazley.
- Heavy rains and mudslides in Algeria kill more than 900.
- November 11 – Two French journalists Pierre Billaud and Johanne Sutton, and a German colleague Volker Handloik, are killed in Afghanistan during an attack on the convoy they are traveling in.
- November 12
- American Airlines Flight 587 crashes in Queens minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 on board.
- War in Afghanistan: Taliban forces abandon Kabul, ahead of advancing Northern Alliance troops.
- November 14 – War in Afghanistan: Northern Alliance fighters take over the capital Kabul.
- November 15 – Microsoft releases the Xbox in the United States and enters the video game market.
- November 23 – The Convention on Cybercrime is signed in Budapest, Hungary.
- November 27 – A hydrogen atmosphere is discovered on the extrasolar planet Osiris by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.
December
- December – The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty produces a report on Responsibility to protect.
- December 2
- Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection 5 days after Dynegy cancels a US$8.4 billion buyout bid (to this point, the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history).
- 1998–2002 Argentine great depression: Corralito – The government effectively freezes all bank accounts for twelve months leading to December 2001 riots in Argentina.
- December 11 – The People’s Republic of China joins the World Trade Organization.
- December 13
- 2001 Indian Parliament attack: Nine people and five terrorists are killed in a terrorist attack in New Delhi, leading to the 2001–02 India–Pakistan standoff.
- U.S. President George W. Bush announces the US withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
- December 15 – The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after 11 years and $27,000,000 spent to fortify it, without fixing its famous lean.
- December 19
- A record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 hPa (32.06 inHg) is recorded at Tosontsengel, Zavkhan, Mongolia.
- Argentine economic crisis: December riots: Riots erupt in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- December 22 – Burhanuddin Rabbani, political leader of the Northern Alliance, hands over power in Afghanistan to the interim government headed by President Hamid Karzai.
- December 27
- The People’s Republic of China is granted permanent normal trade status with the United States.
- Tropical Storm Vamei forms within 1.5 degrees of the equator. No other tropical cyclone in recorded history has come as close to the equator.
- December 29 – A fire at the Mesa Redonda shopping center in Lima, Peru, kills at least 291 people.
Full date unknown
