This Year in History:
2002
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
On January 8, 2002, President George W. Bush signs the No Child Left Behind Act into law. The sweeping update to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 created…
Explosions at a military depot in Lagos, Nigeria, trigger a stampede of fleeing people, during which more than 1,000 people are killed. The Ikeja armory was located just north of…
On January 29, 2002, in his first State of the Union address since the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush describes Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an “axis of…
On February 1, 2002, 38‑year‑old American journalist Daniel Pearl, the Southeast Asia bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, is murdered by a terror group in Pakistan. Weeks later, a…
On February 3, 2002, the New England Patriots shock football fans everywhere by defeating the heavily favored St. Louis Rams, 20‑17, to take home their first Super Bowl victory. Pats’…
President George W. Bush announces his plan to federally fund faith‑based initiatives. Bush started his day at a National Prayer Breakfast held in the ballroom of the Washington Hilton Hotel,…
On February 12, 2002, former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic goes on trial at The Hague, Netherlands, on charges of genocide and war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo. Milosevic served…
On February 15, 2002, the International Olympic Committee announces it has sufficient evidence of fraud by a French judge and awards a second gold medal in pairs figure skating at…
The defense rests in the trial of Andrea Yates, a 37‑year‑old Texas woman who confessed to killing her five young children by drowning them in a bathtub. Less than a…
On April 17, 2002, ABC airs the 10,000th episode of the daytime drama General Hospital, the network’s longest‑running soap opera and the longest‑running program ever produced in Hollywood. Created by…
On May 1, 2002, former NBA All‑Star Jayson Williams was indicted on a series of charges, including aggravated manslaughter, in connection with the shooting death of limousine driver Costas Christofi…
On May 4, 2002, an EAS Airline plane crashes into the town of Kano, Nigeria, killing 149 people. The Nigerian BAC 1‑11‑500 aircraft exploded in a densely populated section of…
Directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire in the title role, the eagerly awaited comic book adaptation Spider‑Man was released on Friday, May 3, 2002, and quickly became the…
On May 10, 2002, Robert Hanssen, a former FBI agent who intermittently sold state secrets to Russia over the course of two decades, receives his sentencing for espionage: life in…
The remains of former Federal Bureau of Prisons intern Chandra Levy are found on May 22, 2002, over a year after the 24‑year‑old was last seen at a health club.…
On June 7, 2002, 41‑year‑old Michael Skakel is convicted in the 1975 murder of his former Greenwich, Connecticut, neighbor, 15‑year‑old Martha Moxley. Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, the wife…
On June 10, 2002, Clint Messina, 21, of Lacombe, Louisiana, is arrested and charged in the attempted murder of a police officer after driving into a patrol car while attempting…
On July 16, 2002, President George W. Bush announces his plan for strengthening homeland security in the wake of the shocking September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and…
On August 5, 2002, the rusty iron gun turret of the U.S.S. Monitor broke from the water and into the daylight for the first time in 140 years. The ironclad…
On September 4, 2002, Kelly Clarkson, a 20‑year‑old cocktail waitress from Texas, wins the first season of American Idol in a live television broadcast from Hollywood’s Kodak Theater. Clarkson came…
