WHAT ALL HAPPENED FEBRUARY TO JUNE 2002
Find out what all happened February to June 2002

NASA's Mars Odyssey space probe begins to map the surface of Mars using its thermal emission imaging system. (19. February 2002)

Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro becoming the first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro's 1959 revolution. (12. May 2002)

An EAS Airlines BAC 1-11-500 crashes in a suburb of Kano, Nigeria shortly after takeoff, killing 149 people. (4. May 2002)

The Budapest Open Access Initiative, one of the cornerstones of the Open access movement, was released to the public. (14. February 2002)

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

The tugboat Robert Y. Love collides with a support pier of Interstate 40 on the Arkansas River near Webbers Falls, Oklahoma, resulting in 14 deaths and 11 others injured. (26. May 2002)

Godhra train burning: A Muslim mob kills 59 Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya. (27. February 2002)

The "55 parties" clause of the Kyoto Protocol is reached after its ratification by Iceland. (23. May 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)

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)

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

The Mars Odyssey finds signs of large ice deposits on the planet Mars. (28. May 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)

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)

The 38-day stand-off in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem comes to an end when the Palestinians inside agree to have 13 suspected terrorists among them deported to several different countries. (9. May 2002)

During the religious violence in Gujarat, the 97 people killed in the Naroda Patiya massacre and 69 in Gulbarg Society massacre. (28. February 2002)

American civil rights movement: a jury in Birmingham, Alabama, convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of the 1963 murders of four girls in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. (22. May 2002)

F.B.I. agent Robert Hanssen is sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for selling United States secrets to Moscow for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds. (10. May 2002)

Passover massacre: A Palestinian suicide bomber kills 29 people partaking of the Passover meal in Netanya, Israel. (27. March 2002)