WHAT ALL HAPPENED JANUARY TO MAY 2002
Find out what all happened January to May 2002

Kmart becomes the largest retailer in United States history to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. (22. January 2002)

The Envisat environmental satellite successfully reaches an orbit 800 kilometers (500 mi) above the Earth on its 11th launch, carrying the heaviest payload to date at 8500 kilograms (8.5 tons). (1. March 2002)

TAME Flight 120, a Boeing 727-100 crashes in the Andes mountains in southern Colombia killing 92. (28. January 2002)

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

China Airlines Flight 611 disintegrates in mid-air and crashes into the Taiwan Strait. All 225 people on board are killed. (25. 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)

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)

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

The "55 parties" clause of the Kyoto Protocol is reached after its ratification by Iceland. (23. May 2002)

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

Robert Steinhäuser infiltrates and kills 16 at Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt, Germany before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot. (26. April 2002)

Taiwan officially joins the World Trade Organization, as Chinese Taipei. (1. January 2002)

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

An explosion at a military storage facility in Lagos, Nigeria, kills at least 1,100 people and displaces over 20,000 others. (27. January 2002)

Zimbabwe is suspended from the Commonwealth on charges of human rights abuses and of electoral fraud, following a turbulent presidential election. (19. March 2002)

Russia and the United States sign the Moscow Treaty. (24. May 2002)

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

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)