Year 2000
Events
January
January 2 – Massacre of twenty Copts by Muslim villagers in Kosheh,
Egypt.
January 6 – The last natural Pyrenean ibex is found dead, apparently
killed by a falling tree.
January 10 – America Online announces an agreement to purchase Time
Warner for $162 billion (the largest-ever corporate merger).
January 14
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at 11,722.98 (at the peak of the
Dot-com bubble).
A United Nations tribunal sentences five Bosnian Croats to up to 25
years in prison for the 1993 killing of more than 100 Bosnian Muslims.
January 18 – The Tagish Lake meteorite impacts the Earth.
January 30 – Kenya Airways Flight 431 crashes off the coast of Ivory
Coast into the Atlantic Ocean, killing 169.
January 31
Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crashes off the California coast into the
Pacific Ocean, killing 88.
Dr. Harold Shipman is found guilty of murdering 15 patients between 1995
and 1998 at Hyde, Greater Manchester, and sentenced to life
imprisonment.
February
February 4 – German extortionist Klaus-Peter Sabotta is jailed for life
for attempted murder and extortion, in connection with the sabotage of
German railway lines.
February 9 – Torrential rains in Africa lead to the worst flooding in
Mozambique in 50 years, which lasts until March and kills 800 people.
February 13 – The final original Peanuts comic strip is published,
following the death of its creator, Charles M. Schulz.
February 21 – UNESCO holds the inaugural celebration of International
Mother Language Day.
February 29 – A rare century leap year date occurs. Usually, century
years are common years due to not being exactly divisible by 400. 2000
is the first such year to have a February 29 since the year 1600, making
it only the second such occasion since the Gregorian Calendar was
introduced in the late 16th century. The next such leap year will occur
in 2400.
March
March 4 – The Playstation 2 was released
March 8 – Tokyo train disaster: A sideswipe collision of two Tokyo Metro
trains kills five people.
March 10 – The NASDAQ Composite Index reaches an all-time high of 5,048.
Two weeks later, the NASDAQ-100, S&P 500, and Wilshire 5000 reach their
peaks prior to the Dot-com bubble, ending a bull market run that lasted
over 17 years.
March 12
Pope John Paul II apologizes for the wrongdoings by members of the Roman
Catholic Church throughout the ages.
A Zenit-3SL launch fails due to a software bug.
March 13 – The United States dollar becomes the official currency of
Ecuador, replacing the Ecuadorian sucre.
April
April 3 – United States v. Microsoft Corp.: Microsoft is ruled to have
violated United States antitrust laws by keeping "an oppressive thumb"
on its competitors.
April 22 – In a predawn raid, federal agents seize 6-year-old Elián
González from his relatives' home in Miami and fly him to his Cuban
father in Washington, D.C., ending one of the most publicized custody
battles in U.S. history.
April 30 – Canonization of Faustina Kowalska in the presence of 200,000
people and the first Divine Mercy Sunday celebrated worldwide.
May
May 1 – A new class of composite material is fabricated, which has a
combination of physical properties never before seen in a natural or
man-made material.
May 3 – In San Antonio, Texas, computer pioneer Datapoint files for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
May 4 – The 7.6 Mw Central Sulawesi earthquake affects Banggai,
Indonesia, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (Very strong),
leaving 46 dead and 264 injured.
May 5
After originating in the Philippines, the ILOVEYOU computer virus
spreads quickly throughout the world.
A rare conjunction of seven celestial bodies (Sun, Moon, planets
Mercury–Saturn) occurs during the new moon.
May 11 – The billionth living person in India is born.
May 13
A fireworks factory disaster in Enschede, Netherlands, kills 23.
Millennium Force opens at Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio
as the world's tallest and fastest roller coaster.
May 24 – Real Madrid C.F. defeats Valencia CF 3–0 in the UEFA Champions
League Final at Stade de France to win their second title between 1998
and 2002, and their eighth overall.
June
June 4 – The 7.9 Mw Enggano earthquake shakes southwestern Sumatra with
a maximum Mercalli intensity of VI (Strong), killing 103 people and
injuring 2,174–2,585.
June 5 – 405 The Movie, the first short film widely distributed on the
Internet, is released.
June 10 – July 2 – Belgium and the Netherlands jointly host the UEFA
Euro 2000 football tournament, which is won by France.
June 17 – A centennial earthquake (6.5 on the Richter scale) hits
Iceland on its national day.
June 26 – A preliminary draft of genomes, as part of the Human Genome
Project, is finished. It is announced at the White House by President
Clinton.
June 28 – Elián González returns to Cuba with his father, Juan Miguel
González, ending a protracted custody battle.
June 30 – At the Roskilde Festival near Copenhagen, Denmark, nine die
and 26 are injured on a set while the rock group Pearl Jam performs.
July
July 1 – The Øresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden is officially
opened for traffic.
July 2 – France defeats Italy 2–1 after extra time in the final of the
European Championship, becoming the first team to win the World Cup and
European Championship consecutively.
July 7 – The draft assembly of Human Genome Project announced at the
White House by President Bill Clinton, Francis Collins, and Craig
Venter.
July 10 – In southern Nigeria, a leaking petroleum pipeline explodes,
killing about 250 villagers who were scavenging gasoline.
July 14 – A powerful solar flare, later named the Bastille Day event,
causes a geomagnetic storm on Earth.
July 25 – Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde aircraft, crashes into a
hotel in Gonesse just after takeoff from Paris, killing all 109 aboard
and 4 in the hotel.
August
August 3 – Rioting erupts on the Paulsgrove estate in Portsmouth,
Hampshire, England, after more than 100 people besiege a block of flats
allegedly housing a convicted paedophile. This is the latest vigilante
violence against suspected sex offenders since the beginning of the
"naming and shaming" anti-pedophile campaign by the tabloid newspaper
News of the World.
August 7 – DeviantART is launched.
August 8 – The Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley is raised to the
surface after 136 years on the ocean floor.
August 12 – The Russian submarine Kursk sinks in the Barents Sea during
one of the largest Russian naval exercises since the 1991 dissolution of
the Soviet Union, resulting in the deaths of all 118 men on board.
August 14
Tsar Nicholas II and his family are canonized by the synod of the
Russian Orthodox Church.
Dora the Explorer, one of Nickelodeon's most popular shows, debuts.
August 23 – John Anthony Kaiser, a Roman Catholic priest, is murdered in
Morendat, Kenya.
August 24 – The Nintendo GameCube is revealed.
September
September 6 – The last wholly Swedish-owned arms manufacturer, Bofors,
is sold to American arms manufacturer United Defense.
September 6–8 – World leaders attend the Millennium Summit at U.N.
Headquarters.
September 7–14 – Fuel protests take place in the United Kingdom, with
refineries blockaded, and supply to the country's network of petrol
stations halted.
September 10 – Operation Barras: A British military operation to free
five soldiers from the Royal Irish Regiment that were held captive for
over two weeks during the Sierra Leone Civil War, all of which were
rescued.
September 13 – Steve Jobs introduces the public beta of Mac OS X for
US$29.95.
September 15 – October 1 – The 2000 Summer Olympics, held in Sydney,
Australia, is the last Olympic Games of the 20th century.
September 16 – Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze is last seen alive;
this day is taken as the commemoration date of his death.
September 26 – The Greek ferry Express Samina sinks off the coast of the
island of Paros; 80 out of a total of over 500 passengers perish in one
of Greece's worst sea disasters.
September 29 – The HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland is closed.
October
October 3 – Approximate start of Autumn 2000 Western Europe floods
(particularly affecting England) precipitated by days of heavy rain.
October 5 – Mass demonstrations in Belgrade lead to resignation of
Yugoslavia's president Slobodan Milošević.
October 6 – The last Mini is produced in Longbridge.
October 11 – 250 million US gallons (950,000 m3) of coal sludge spill in
Martin County, Kentucky (considered a greater environmental disaster
than the Exxon Valdez oil spill).
October 12 – In Aden, Yemen, USS Cole is badly damaged by two Al-Qaeda
suicide bombers, who place a small boat laden with explosives alongside
the United States Navy destroyer, killing 17 crew members and wounding
at least 39.
October 22 – The Mainichi Shimbun newspaper exposes Japanese
archeologist Shinichi Fujimura as a fraud; Japanese archaeologists had
based their treatises on his findings.
October 26
Pakistani authorities announce that their police have found an
apparently ancient mummy of a Persian Princess in the province of
Balochistan. Iran, Pakistan and the Taliban all claim the mummy until
Pakistan announces it is a modern-day fake on April 17, 2001.
The New York Yankees defeat the New York Mets 4-2 in the fifth game of
the World Series to win the first "Subway Series" since 1956 by 4 games
to 1. The series win was the Yankees third in a row and 26th overall.
October 30 – This is the final date during which there is no human
presence in space; on October 31, Soyuz TM-31 launches, carrying the
first resident crew to the International Space Station. The ISS has been
continuously crewed since.
October 31 – Singapore Airlines Flight 006 collides with construction
equipment in the Chiang Kai Shek International Airport, resulting in 83
deaths.
November
November 2 – The first resident crew enters the International Space
Station.
November 7 – In London, a criminal gang raids the Millennium Dome to
steal the Millennium Star diamond, but police surveillance catches them
in the act.
November 11 – Kaprun disaster, Austria: A funicular fire in an Alpine
tunnel kills 155 skiers and snowboarders.
November 17 – A catastrophic landslide in Log pod Mangartom, Slovenia,
kills 7, and causes millions of SIT of damage. It is one of the worst
catastrophes in Slovenia in the past 100 years.
December
December 7 – Kadisoka temple is discovered in Sleman, Yogyakarta,
Indonesia.
December 15 – The third and final reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power
Plant is shut down and the station is shut down completely.
December 25 – The Luoyang Christmas fire at a shopping center in China
kills 309 people.
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