WHAT ALL HAPPENED MAY TO NOVEMBER 2002
Find out what all happened May to November 2002

The independence of East Timor is recognized by Portugal, formally ending 23 years of Indonesian rule and 3 years of provisional UN administration (Portugal itself is the former colonizer of East Timor until 1976). (20. May 2002)

Ho Chi Minh City ITC fire, a fire destroys a luxurious department store where 1500 people are shopping. Over 60 people die and over 100 are unaccounted for. It is the deadliest disaster in Vietnam during peacetime. (29. October 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)

The first public version of the web browser Mozilla Firefox ("Phoenix 0.1") is released. (23. September 2002)

Anti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan hands down the death sentence to British born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and life terms to three others suspected of murdering The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. (15. July 2002)

A federal grand jury in Houston, Texas indicts former Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow on 78 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice related to the collapse of his ex-employer. (31. October 2002)

The oil tanker Prestige sinks off the Galician coast and causes a huge oil spill. (13. November 2002)

Veteran's Day weekend tornado outbreak; a tornado outbreak stretching from Northern Ohio to the Gulf Coast, one of the largest outbreaks recorded in November. The strongest tornado, an F4, hits Van Wert, Ohio during the early to mid afternoon and destroys a movie theater but the theater is evacuated prior to the hit. (10. November 2002)

The International Criminal Court is established to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. (1. July 2002)

Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, a commemoration of the Library of Alexandria that was lost in antiquity, is officially inaugurated. (16. October 2002)

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

Soham murders: 10-year-old school girls Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells go missing from the town of Soham, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom. (4. August 2002)

The Vitim event, a possible bolide impact in Siberia, Russia. (25. September 2002)

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

Police arrest spree killers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, ending the Beltway sniper attacks in the area around Washington, DC. (24. October 2002)

The French oil tanker Limburg is bombed off Yemen. (6. October 2002)

Near-Earth asteroid 2002 MN misses the Earth by 75,000 miles (121,000 km), about one-third of the distance between the Earth and the Moon. (14. June 2002)

Chinese authorities arrest cyber-dissident He Depu for signing a pro-democracy letter to the 16th Communist Party Congress. (4. November 2002)

An earthquake measuring 6.5 Mw strikes a region of northwestern Iran killing at least 261 people and injuring 1,300 others and eventually causing widespread public anger due to the slow official response. (22. June 2002)

Suicide bombers blow up an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya; their colleagues fail in their attempt to bring down Arkia Israel Airlines Flight 582 with surface-to-air missiles. (28. November 2002)