WHAT ALL HAPPENED JANUARY TO JUNE 2002
Find out what all happened January to June 2002

Afghanistan: Seven American Special Operations Forces soldiers and 200 Al-Qaeda Fighters are killed as American forces attempt to infiltrate the Shahi Kot Valley on a low-flying helicopter reconnaissance mission. (4. March 2002)

Angolan political and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi is killed in a military ambush. (22. February 2002)

U.S. invasion of Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda begins, (ending on March 19 after killing 500 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, with 11 Western troop fatalities). (2. March 2002)

A female suicide bomber blows herself up at the entrance to Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda open-air market, killing 7 and wounding 104. (12. April 2002)

The last successful telemetry from the NASA space probe Pioneer 10. (27. April 2002)

In his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush describes "regimes that sponsor terror" as an Axis of evil, in which he includes Iraq, Iran and North Korea. (29. January 2002)

Ryanair Flight 296 catches fire at London Stansted Airport. Subsequent investigations criticize Ryanair's handling of the evacuation. (27. February 2002)

Israeli forces seize the Palestinian freighter Karine A in the Red Sea, finding 50 tons of weapons. (3. January 2002)

Over two hundred thousand people marched in Caracas towards the Presidential Palace of Miraflores, to demand the resignation of president Hugo Chávez. 19 of the protesters are killed, and the Minister of Defense Gral. Lucas Rincon announces Hugo Chávez resignation on national TV. (11. April 2002)

The United States withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. (13. June 2002)

NATO declares Russia a limited partner in the Western alliance. (28. May 2002)

Israeli forces surround the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem into which armed Palestinians had retreated. A siege ensues. (2. April 2002)

Sierra Leone Civil War is declared over. (18. January 2002)

The Igandu train disaster in Tanzania kills 281, the worst train accident in African history. (24. June 2002)

The Ghriba synagogue bombing by Al Qaeda kills 21 in Tunisia. (11. April 2002)

In reaction to the Passover massacre two days prior, Israel launches Operation Defensive Shield against Palestinian militants, its largest military operation in the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War. (29. March 2002)

Reporter Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan and subsequently murdered . (23. January 2002)

Daniel Pearl, American journalist and South Asia Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal, kidnapped January 23, 2002, is beheaded and mutilated by his captors. (1. February 2002)

Antonio Meucci is acknowledged as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress. (11. June 2002)

The trial of Slobodan Milošević, the former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, begins at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. He dies four years later before its conclusion. (12. February 2002)