WHAT HAPPENED IN 2002.
Look what happened the 2002.

A China Northern Airlines MD-82 plunges into the Yellow Sea, killing 112 people. (7. May 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)

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)

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 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)

In Washington, D.C., the remains of the missing Chandra Levy are found in Rock Creek Park. (22. May 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)

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

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

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)

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

The Mars Odyssey finds signs of large ice deposits on the planet Mars. (28. May 2002)

Eastern Mediterranean Event. A near-Earth asteroid estimated at 10 meters in diameter explodes over the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Libya. The resulting explosion is estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, slightly more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb. (6. June 2002)

The first direct electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans is carried out by Kevin Warwick in the United Kingdom. (10. June 2002)

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

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

Two 14-year-old South Korean girls are struck and killed by a United States Army armored vehicle, leading to months of public protests against the US. (13. June 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)

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)