North Korea announces January 10 that she is withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty effective immediately (see 2002). Pyongyang signed the agreement in 1985 and in 1992 entered into the International Energy Agency's Safeguards Agreement.
President Bush says in his State of the Union Message January 28 that British intelligence has learned of Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium from Africa (see 2002). CBS News has reported that Pentagon plans call for a "shock and awe" bombardment of Baghdad in the event of invasion. Opposition to an Iraqi war motivates a 28-year-old woman translator at Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) January 31 to leak the contents of an e-mail memo describing efforts by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) to bug the telephones of certain UN delegates at New York. Some 10 million demonstrators in 600 cities worldwide take to the streets February 15 in a massive protest against a proposed U.S. invasion of Iraq, and while it is probably the largest such demonstration in history, President Bush shrugs it off, saying that he never listens to "focus groups," and although his administration tries to buy support for the invasion Britain's prime minister Tony Blair is almost the only foreign political leader willing to defy public opinion; Blair stands by the report of Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Niger, a report discredited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz testifies before the House Budget Committee February 28 in support of Secretary Rumsfeld's position that the army can conquer Iraq with only 100,000 troops plus some tens of thousands supplied by allied nations. Many in the Pentagon have questioned that position, but Wolfowitz calls Army Chief of Staff Gen. Erik K. Shinseki "wildly off the mark" in his estimate that the number of troops needed is more like 400,000. Turkey's parliament votes against letting an invasion force use its territory to enter Iraq, even though the refusal means turning down some $26 billion in U.S. aid (see 2002).
Pakistani authorities arrest Kuwaiti-born al Qaeda leader Khalid Shakh Mohammed, 37, at Rawalpindi near Islamabad March 1 and turn him over to U.S. authorities. Regarded as Osama bin Laden's third in command and probably the mastermind behind such terrorist attacks as those on New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the U.S.S. Cole, Khalid has been on the FBI's most-wanted list; his apprehension comes at a time when the Bush administration has come under growing criticism for neglecting the "war" on terrorism announced in the fall of 2001 and diverting resources to a planned invasion of Iraq in the face of almost universal worldwide opposition.
Debate over Iraq and North Korea dominates world political discussion. The London Observer March 2 publishes the memo leaked January 31 by GCHQ translator Katharine Gunn under the headline "Revealed: U.S. Dirty Tricks to Win Vote on Iraq War." President Bush announces March 17 that he is giving Iraq's Saddam Hussein 48 hours to disarm, Baghdad prepares for invasion, U.S. and British forces invade Iraq March 18 in what London and Washington call a "coalition" effort and promote as "Operation Iraqi Freedom," but in marked contrast to the 1991 Gulf War only Britain provides any meaningful support. The invaders encounter little opposition, U.S. and British planes attack one of Saddam's presidential palaces March 19 in an unsuccessful effort to kill the leader, and President Bush goes on radio and television to read a statement that begins, "My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger." Former U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan writes from his Princeton, N.J., home to the Washington Post March 25 deploring what he perceives as a congressional failure; now 99, the author of the "containment policy" against the former Soviet Union says tactfully, "I am extremely concerned about the shameful, almost total passivity of Congress during the period of preparation for our military attack on Iraq. Congress's inaction is a dangerous precedent in executive-legislative relations. In light of this precedent, future presidents will be tempted to seize virtually dictatorial powers under the title commander-in-chief, and nothing in our history rules out the possibility of their yielding to that temptation."
U.S. forces occupy central Baghdad April 9, apparently vindicating Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's position that modern technology permits a relatively small army to do what heretofore has required a major troop commitment. Hundreds of Iraqis cheer the Americans, an armored vehicle pulls down a statue of Saddam Hussein, but Saddam himself is nowhere to be found, no weapons of mass destruction turn up, nor does any hard evidence of a link between Saddam and al Qaeda terrorists. U.S. and British occupation forces are unable to avert chaos at Baghdad, Basra, and other cities. Looting continues for weeks, armed gangs roam city streets and citizens arm themselves to protect their homes in the absence of any effective police presence. Fighting breaks out between Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites, and shortages of electricity and water continue for months in Baghdad and elsewhere as the Army Corps of Engineers struggles to rebuild the shattered infrastructure amidst increasing resentment among Iraqis. Gen. Shinseki retires from his office as U.S. Army chief of staff in mid-June; still only 60, the first Japanese-American to head a U.S. military service has pushed for a transformation of that service to a lighter, more deployable force but battled Secretary Rumsfeld's proposed cuts in spending for the military.
Syndicated columnist Robert Novak asserts in his column July 14 that CIA agent Valerie Plame, 40, recruited her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, to investigate the claim last year that Saddam Hussein's regime tried to buy yellowcake (uranium ore) from Niger. The 72-year-old Novak attributes his story to "two senior administration officials," he draws censure for "outing" a CIA officer (the Anchorage, Alaska-born Plame joined the agency at age 22 and has been employed by it ever since), speculation about the White House leak creates a furor, and Wilson says August 21, "At the end of the day, it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words."
British scientist and biological weapons expert David Kelly is found dead five miles from his Oxfordshire home July 17 at age 59, an apparent suicide; he has served as a United Nations weapons inspector and the claims that Iraq sought to acquire yellowcake from Niger had been attributed to him.
U.S. troops kill Saddam Hussein's hated sons Ousay, 37, and Uday, 39, in a shootout near Mosul July 22 but occupation forces continue to suffer casualties as Iraqi guerrillas attack U.S. and British soldiers while critics from both major U.S. political parties raise questions about the legitimacy of arguments advanced by the Bush administration to justify the Iraqi war, which has stretched U.S. military forces dangerously thin in other parts of the world; occupying Iraq costs $4 billion per month even without reconstruction expenses. Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker is called out of retirement to succeed Gen. Shinseki as chief of staff and moves to reshape the army.
Japan's Diet approves legislation July 27 permitting deployment of up to 1,000 troops in Iraq despite arguments that such action would violate Japanese law (Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet gives approval December 9 to sending 600 troops). Other countries balk at putting their forces in harm's way absent a United Nations resolution sanctioning the occupation, and Washington balks at letting the UN have any military role in Iraq.
Synchronized truck-bomb attacks on a residential compound at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 12 kill at least 20 people, including seven Americans. Observers say the terrorism has "all the earmarks" of an al Qaeda operation, but some suggest the attackers may belong to a newer group. Explosions at Casablanca, Morocco, May 15 kill 41 and injure more than 100, increasing fears that al Qaeda may attack more targets in the United States and confirming predictions that an invasion of Iraq would spur recruitment of anti-Western Muslim extremists.
President Bush warns terrorists and Baathist diehards July 2, "There are some that feel like—if they attack us—that we may decide to leave prematurely . . . My answer is, bring 'em on."
A terrorist bomb on UN headquarters at Baghdad August 18 kills 23 people, including Brazilian Sergio Veira de Mello, 55, and his Egyptian chief of staff Nadia Younes, 57. More than 100 are injured. The incident confirms allegations that at least some extremists have come into Iraq from Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, but further terrorist acts at Bombay, Istanbul, Moscow, in Indonesia, and elsewhere in the world take hundreds of lives in the months that follow, leaving more hundreds maimed and increasing doubts that President Bush's "war" on terrorism can ever end so long as any teenaged suicide bomber is willing to blow him or herself up; little or no effort is made to address the underlying causes of terrorist acts by religious zealots who have little education, little chance of employment, and little earthly hope of any kind.
Denver-born Sen. John F. (Forbes) Kerry (D. Mass.), 59, bids for nomination in next year's Iowa presidential primary and says at Des Moines November 15, "If George Bush wants to make national security an issue in this campaign, I have these words for him that I know he'll understand: Bring it on!" First elected to the Senate in 1985, Kerry had served with distinction as a navy officer in Vietnam and later opposed U.S. engagement in that country's civil war.
U.S. forces finally capture Saddam Hussein December 13, taking him alive without resistance in a rat-infested hole outside his native Tikrit, but terrorist acts against American forces in Iraq continue.
British statesman Roy Jenkins dies at his Oxfordshire home January 5 at age 82, having helped found the centrist Social Democratic Party in 1981.
The Czech Republic's first president Vaclav Havel leaves Prague Castle February 2 after 10 years in office and receives the International Rescue Committee's Freedom Award November 13; 66 at the end of his presidency, he is succeeded by his longtime political opponent Vaclav Klaus, 61, an economist who served as prime minister from 1993 to 1997.
A sniper assassinates Serbia's prime minister Zoran Djindjik, 50, March 12 in a Belgrade parking lot. A reformer who helped overthrow Slobodan Milosevic, Djindjik has reportedly been preparing to arrest a former special police commander, and officials say he was targeted by a notorious underworld group.
Onetime atomic scientist (and Soviet spy) Alan Nunn May dies at Cambridge January 12 at age 91; legendary KGB spymaster Rem Krassilnikov at Moscow March 18 at age 76, having thwarted numerous CIA and British M16 agents in the mid-1980s; former British attorney general Hartley W. Shawcross, Lord Shawcross of Friston, dies at his home south of London July 10 at age 101, having prosecuted Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials, Lord Haw Haw, and Soviet spies Klaus Fuchs and Alan Nunn May; former KGB officer and Azeri leader Heyar Aliyev dies of congestive heart failure at a Cleveland clinic December 12 at age 80.
Georgia's president Eduard A. Shevardnadze resigns under pressure at Tiblisi November 23 at age 75 after 12 years in which the republic's fortunes have declined. Students have led months of demonstrations against him in a so-called "Rose Revolution," charging him with having rigged his reelection and profited from corrupt deals related to a projected oil pipeline that would carry oil from the Caspian Sea at Baku to a Turkish port on the Black Sea, the only pipeline that would not go through Armenia or Iran. Russian and U.S. diplomats have cooperated to negotiate Shevardnadze's removal (see 2004).
The Center for American Progress founded at Washington, D.C., by former White House chief of staff John Podesta, 54, is a "think tank" designed to counter more heavily funded right-wing groups such as the 60-year-old American Enterprise Institute, the 50-year-old American Heritage Foundation, and the 46-year-old Cato Institute. Financier George Soros has provided seed money to get the new center started.
Brewer and Heritage Foundation cofounder Joseph Coors dies of lymphatic cancer at Rancho Mirage, Calif., March 15 at age 85; scholar and former U.S. senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D. N.Y.) at Washington, D.C., March 26 at age 76 of complications from a ruptured appendix; former senator Russell B. Long (D. La.) dies at Washington, D.C., May 9 at age 84; Maynard H. Jackson Jr. of a heart attack after collapsing at Washington's Reagan National Airport June 23 at age 65, having served as Atlanta's first black mayor; former Georgia governor and integration opponent Lester Maddox dies of pneumonia at his native Atlanta June 25 at age 87; integration opponent Strom Thurmond at Edgefield, S.C., June 26 at age 100, having retired from the U.S. Senate in January after 48 years, always denying that he was a racist but simply a supporter of states' rights; former Atlanta mayor Ivan Allen Jr. dies at Atlanta July 2 at age 92, having overcome his segregationist views and championed racial integration in the 1960s; former Washington, D.C., mayor Walter E. Washington dies at Washington October 27 at age 86; former U.S. senator Paul Simon (D. Ill.) following heart surgery at Springfield, Ill., December 9 at age 75.
California voters oust Gov. Gray Davis in a recall election October 7, replacing him with Austrian-born film star Arnold Schwarzenegger, 56, a onetime body builder who has been accused of sex offenses but defended by his Chicago-born broadcast journalist wife, Maria Shriver, 47, a Democrat whose father, Sargent Shriver, married a sister of the late John F. Kennedy. The state's first governor to be recalled under its 1911 constitutional amendment that initiated direct democracy, and the first in the nation to be recalled since 1921, Davis was elected to a second term last year but has been blamed for California's economic troubles and high energy prices. Republican Schwarzenegger has departed from his party's positions by supporting reproductive rights and gun-control laws, but he has promised not to raise taxes, not to cut funding for education, and to repeal an increased tax on automobiles; although he reaches out for bipartisan advice he faces a Democratic legislature.
Former president George H. W. Bush confers the George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service on Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in a ceremony at Texas A & M University November 7, even though Kennedy has been outspoken in his criticism of the second President Bush's policies. He is the first U.S. recipient of the award (a crystal trophy plus $20,000), which has previously been given to Mikhail Gorbachev and Helmut Kohl.
Canadian voters give overwhelming approval November 14 to a new head of the Liberal Party: former finance minister Paul Martin, 65, was dismissed by Jean Chrétien last year for allegedly scheming to replace him as prime minister, and his victory at the polls guarantees that he will succeed Chrétien when the latter retires early next year after more than 10 years in office. Chrétien has alienated the White House by supporting clinics for hard-core drug users in his efforts to curb crime and the spread of AIDS, opposing imprisonment for minor drug violations, supporting same-sex marriage, and refusing to send troops to Iraq (although Canada has 2,000 troops in Afghanistan). A female aide who called George W. Bush a "moron" resigns under pressure.
Former Argentine president Carlos Saul Menem withdraws from his country's presidential race May 14 after opinion polls show him far behind amidst signs that Argentina is recovering from the worst economic crisis in her history; leftist Néstor Kirchner, 53, has served for 12 years as governor of a small province and wins election, but many worry that he is ill-equipped to deal with the nation's problems.
Bolivia has violent riots following an announcement September 15 that the nation's president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, 73, has made a deal to build a $5 million pipeline and export natural gas to Mexico and the United States via Chile. Privatization of public utilities and other changes have embittered most of the 8.8 million people in South America's poorest country; Ayamaras and Quechuas, miners, and students protest that the pipeline will only enrich Bolivia's ruling class, and they virtually shut down the country's economy. A U.S.-educated millionaire mine owner who served as president from 1993 to 1997 and was elected again last year, Sanchez de Lozada resigns under pressure October 17 after more than 70 have died in the riots and is succeeded by his 53-year-old vice president Carlos Mesa, a television journalist who never held political office before being selected last year and has opposed U.S. efforts to eradicate coca production, which contributes $400 million per year to Bolivia's economy.
Puerto Rican statehood advocate Luis A. Ferré dies at San Juan October 21 at age 99.
Burundi rebels move into the capital city Bujumbura beginning July 7 as inter-tribal hostilities continue in the former Belgian colony that has lost an estimated 300,000 people in 10 years of civil war.
Liberia's president Charles G. Taylor resigns August 11 as a small detachment of U.S. marines joins with Nigerian peacekeepers to restore order at Monrovia while three U.S. warships off shore stand by with 2,300 marines. Vice-President Moses Blah, 56, has served as Liberian ambassador to Libya (where he attended military college from 1985 to 1989) and succeeds to the presidency, welcoming the country's rebels as "brothers" who can participate in the new government, but rebels say Blah was part of Taylor's "criminal enterprise" and declare him unacceptable.
Former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin dies of multiple organ failure in exile at Jidda, Saudi Arabia, August 16 at age 79 (approximate), having allegedly killed some 300,000 people in the 1970s.
Israel launches a predawn airstrike October 5 on what it calls a Palestinian terrorist training camp outside Damascus, retaliating for a suicide bombing at Haifa October 4 that left 19 Jews and Arabs dead. It is the first Israeli attack on targets in Syria since 1973, and it raises fears of an escalation in Middle Eastern hostilities, but President Bush says Israel has a right to defend herself.
Former Chinese first lady Mme. Chiang Kai-shek dies at her opulent New York apartment October 23 at age 106, having outlived her husband by 28 years.
U.S. and foreign intelligence agents intercept Libya-bound centrifuges in October and begin to uncover a nuclear-proliferation network headed by Pakistani weapons expert Abdul Qadeer Khan, who has been acquiring homes and properties that include a tourist hotel in Africa (see 1998). A factory has been set up in Malaysia to fill an order placed by one of Khan's middlemen in Dubai for the advanced centrifuges, which concentrate the U-235 isotope, spy satellites have tracked a shipment to Dubai, where crates were relabeled "used machinery" and transferred to the German ship BBC China, and when the ship went through the Suez Canal it was seized before it could reach Libya (see 2004).
Malaysia's prime minister Mahathir Muhamad resigns October 31 at age 77 after 22 years of autocratic rule in which he has moved his country (population: 23 million) from its traditional dependence on rubber and palm oil to the world's leading exporter of Dell laptop computers and Intel high-end processors. The nation's literacy rate has climbed to 83 percent but it remains an Islamic republic, religiosity has increased, provincial areas apply strict interpretation of Shariah law, and Mahathir has ranted against Jews, but he has also been outspoken in his criticism of fundamentalist Muslim leaders for failing to bring their followers into the modern world. His handpicked successor Abdullah Badawi, 63, takes over in a televised ceremony at Putrajaya.
The U.S. Supreme Court strikes a modest blow for campaign-finance reform December 10 in a 5-to-4 ruling that says Congress did not exceed its constitutional limits last year when it enacted the bipartisan McCain-Feingold law limiting political campaign contributions (McConnell v. FEC). The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), National Rifle Association, and some elected officials challenged the law, saying it limited free speech, but while the majority opinion rejects that contention and says Congress has important interests in preventing political corruption and the appearance of corruption, the Court recognizes that Congress still has an obligation to address what it calls "the ill effects of aggregated wealth on our political system": "We are under no illusion that BCRA will be the last congressional statement on the matter. Money, like water, will always find an outlet. What problems will arise, and how Congress will respond, are concerns for another day." Chief Justice Rehnquist joins Justices Kennedy, Scalia, and Thomas in the dissent, Scalia calling December 10 "a sad day for the freedom of speech."
Sudan's Islamist government continues its civil war against Christians and animists in the south but begins early in the year to drive out or kill fellow Muslims in the Darfur region bordering Chad, targeting rebellious blacks in a program of ethnic cleansing (see 2004).
Cuba's Fidel Castro cracks down on dissidents beginning March 18 in the apparent belief that the invasion of Iraq will distract U.S. attention. Within hours more than 75 men and women are behind bars, some receive prison sentences of up to 28 years, and three are executed in April. The new repression brings condemnation in Europe even from some who have supported the Castro regime.
South African apartheid fighter Walter Susulu dies at his Soweto home May 6 at age 90.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturns a Texas sodomy law June 26, ruling 6 to 3 in the case of Lawrence v. Texas that "gays are entitled to respect for their private lives" (in the words of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who writes the majority opinion). Justices Scalia and Thomas deplore the decision, which overturns the Bowers v. Hardwick decision of 1986. Says Kennedy, "Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today. It ought not to remain binding precedent. Bowers v. Hardwick should be and is now overruled." Religious fundamentalists inveigh against the Court.
Teheran lawyer Shirin Ebadi, 56, wins the Nobel Peace Prize in October, having promoted women's rights, refugee rights, children's rights, religious freedom, and peaceful, democratic solutions to social problems. She has been imprisoned on numerous occasions for supporting student protests against the oppression and murder of students who resisted the fundamentalist Islamic control of Iran, where the mullahs continue to employ torture in a police state that suppresses free speech and association.
Same-sex marriage wins support November 18 in a 4-to-3 ruling handed down by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which gives the state legislature 180 days to conform the commonwealth's laws. Denmark has permitted same-sex marriage since 1989, Canada's Supreme Court held in 1999 that same-sex couples must be granted essentially the same rights as married couples, the Netherlands opened civil marriage to gay couples 2 years ago, Belgium followed suit June 1 of this year without going quite so far as the Dutch (gay couples in Belgium may not adopt children as Dutch couples may), even Roman Catholic countries in Europe have for the most part provided some kind of status for same-sex couples, and Ontario's court of appeals has ruled June 10 that gays have a right to get married. Natal, South Africa-born Chief Justice Margaret (Hilary) Marshall, 59, writes the majority opinion in the Massachusetts case, citing state constitution of 1779; Detroit-born Gov. Mitt Romney, 55, says he will push for an amendment to the Massachusetts constitution that would outlaw same-sex marriage, and religious groups mobilize nationwide to resist approval of such unions (see 2004). The New York Times Sunday marriage section has long shown photographs of same-sex newly-weds who were married in religious ceremonies but do not enjoy the benefits of civil marriage; columnist David Brooks writes in the Times, "You would think that . . . we conservatives would do everything in our power to move as many people as possible . . . to the path of fidelity. But instead, many argue that gays must be banished from matrimony because gay marriage would weaken all marriage . . . We shouldn't just allow gay marriage. We should insist on gay marriage. We should regard it as scandalous that two people could claim to love each other and not want to sanctify their love with marriage and fidelity."
U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft pushes for passage of a Domestic Security Enhancement Act (DSEA) that would strengthen the USA Patriot Act of 2001 by enabling the FBI and state police to eavesdrop on what Web sites people visit, what they search for on the Internet, with whom they exchange e-mail and instant messaging—all without a court order for up to 48 hours. Opposition to the original Patriot Act increases as people of all political persuasions come to realize how it is being used to arrest and imprison immigrants and even native-born U.S. citizens, label them "enemy combatants," hold them without due process of law, humiliate them, and deport them in violation of constitutional guarantees and the Geneva Conventions. One of the 12 judges who sit on Britain's highest court delivers a speech at Ottawa October 2 saying, "Guantánamo Bay must be one of the lowest points in the distinguished story of United States jurisprudence." Lord Johan Stein speaks out again at London November 25, "The most powerful democracy is detaining hundreds of suspected foot soldiers of the Taliban in a legal black hole at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, where they await trial on capital charges by military tribunals . . . As a lawyer brought up to admire the ideals of American democracy and justice, I would have to say that I regard this as a monstrous failure of justice." The permanent U.S. representative to the United Nations at Geneva replies December 16 that the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay "have extraordinary health care, the same as U.S. troops get; their menus accommodate their cultural and religious preferences; . . . Of 10,000 fighters detained in Afghanistan over 2 years by coalition forces, less than 700 have been sent to Guantánamo." But a federal court at New York rules 2 to 1 December 18 that President Bush has no constitutional authority to hold Brooklyn-born José Padilla without due process; alleged to have been trained by al Qaeda as a "dirty bomb" terrorist, he was arrested on arrival at Chicago's O'Hare Airport and has been held in a Navy brig at Charleston, S.C., for 18 months. The court orders him released from military custody within 30 days; a federal court at San Francisco that day makes the same ruling in the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, who was captured in Afghanistan and, like Padilla, has been held for more than 18 months in solitary confinement without access to legal counsel.
The Columbia space shuttle disintegrates at 12,500 miles per hour over Texas February 1 while returning from a mission to the space station, killing all seven astronauts aboard. A 248-page report released August 26 by an investigating board blames blunders and complacency at NASA, but the board says it unanimously supports further commitment to space travel.
The People's Republic of China (PRC) launches its first manned space flight October 15, having sent its first satellite into space in 1970. Astronaut Yang Jiwei orbits the Earth in Shenzhou V, putting him into space cost an estimated $2.3 billion, President Hu Jintao hails the mission "an honor for our great motherland," but some critics suggest that the PRC has used the flight for spying and others say the manned flight accomplishes no scientific purpose that could not be achieved with an unmanned flight.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz's February 28 testimony to the House Budget Committee pooh-poohs estimates that an invasion of Iraq will cost $95 billion and that postwar occupation will make it even more expensive. He says this ignores the fact that Iraq is a rich country with annual oil exports worth $15 to $20 billion, and to "assume we're going to pay it all is just wrong." The total cost will in fact prove to be far higher than $95 billion, almost all of it to be borne by U.S. taxpayers.
A $350 billion "Jobs & Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation" bill signed into law by President Bush May 28 has been scaled down from a $726 billion tax-reduction proposal, raises the $600 child tax credit to $1,000, lowers tax bills for married couples, and is projected to cost close to $1 trillion in the next 10 years.
Russia's prime minister Mikhail M. Kasyanov calms anxiety in the nation's business community July 17 by announcing that the Putin administration will not look into how elite came by its wealth, most of which derives from the privatization of former government-owned industries.
World Trade Organization talks at Cancun, Mexico, collapse September 14 as ministers from developing countries walk out in protest against intransigence on the part of European ministers over issues such as agricultural subsidies that put growers of cotton and other commodities in poor countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America at a disadvantage in the world market.
Financier and former secretary of the treasury C. Douglas Dillon dies at New York January 11 at age 93; Nobel economist Franco Modigliani at his Cambridge, Mass., home September 25 at age 85; billionaire Laurence A. Tisch of gastric cancer at New York University Medical Center's Tisch Hospital November 15 at age 80.
Congress votes to end the restrictions on travel to Cuba that have been in place since February 1963 (see 2002); defying the threat of a presidential veto, the Senate votes 50 to 36 October 23 to bar use of federal funds for enforcement of the restrictions (a nearly identical measure passed the House in September), opponents say it sends the wrong message at a time when Fidel Castro is cracking down on dissidents, but supporters say the money should be spent on fighting terrorists instead of on limiting travel. The Treasury Department estimates that about 160,000 Americans traveled legally to Cuba last year (half were visiting family, the others were members of humanitarian and educational groups, diplomats, or journalists), and thousands went illegally by way of third countries despite the risk of heavy fines and even imprisonment. Castro has used the issue to scapegoat the United States for his country's difficulties, but Cuban emigrés in Florida and New Jersey have exerted political pressure to retain the restrictions even though they put U.S. companies at a disadvantage vis-à-vis foreign companies.
President Bush signs a bill November 6 appropriating $87 billion to finance military and reconstruction costs in Iraq. "Today, the United States is making a critical financial commitment to this global strategy to defeat terror," he says in the East Room of the White House. The $87 billion includes about $10 billion for Afghanistan and $8.5 million for the state of Florida to cover expenses of controlling anti-globalization demonstrators at forthcoming Free Trade Agreement of the Americas ministerial meetings at Miami.
President Bush acts December 4 to rescind the tariff on steel that he imposed last year. The White House claims the steel industry has taken steps to make itself competitive in world markets, and the president quickly reasserts his faith in free trade, but the move to rescind the tariff has clearly been dictated by pressure from foreign trading partners and domestic steel users, primarily the automobile industry.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz issues a directive December 5 barring Canadian, French, German, and Russian contractors from bidding on $18.6 billion in prime contracts for reconstruction in Iraq. They may still bid on subcontracts, President Bush says, but the Pentagon action to protect "the essential security interests of the United States" brings protests that the Bush administration is retaliating against countries that did not support its war on Iraq and further isolating itself from onetime allies.
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 31 at 10453.92, up from 8341.63 at the end of 2002. The NASDAQ closes at 2003.37, up 50 percent from its 2002 year-end closing of 1335.51.
The Pentagon awards a contract in March to the Houston-based engineering firm Kellogg Brown & Root to repair Iraq's oil fields. It has solicited no bids from other firms, KBR hires subcontractors so that it can begin work as soon as hostilities end, and when Baghdad falls April 9 Vice President Cheney predicts that by year's end Iraqi oil output will reach 3 million barrels per day, just over its prewar level; the prediction will prove far too optimistic, and Halliburton Inc. at year's end loses its contract to supply Iraq with oil following disclosures of price gouging.
Former Pennzoil CEO and onetime George H. W. Bush partner J. Hugh Liedtke dies at Houston March 27 at age 81.
The worst power failure in U.S. history knocks out electricity August 14 over an area extending from Ohio eastward to Ontario, Michigan, and New York, affecting some 50 million people. Some critics blame deregulation of utility companies, others the lack of investment needed to modernize power grids.
Russian security agents arrest billionaire Yukos Oil Co. chairman Mikhail Khodorkovsky at gunpoint October 25, having stormed aboard his private plane during a refueling stop at Novosibirsk (see 1998). Now barely 40 and the country's richest man, Khodorkovsky is returned to Moscow (where a court has sanctioned his arrest on seven criminal charges that include falsifying documents, massive theft, overseeing corporate tax evasion, and evading more than $1 billion in personal income taxes); placed in the overcrowded Matrosskaya Tishina prison, he resigns from Yukos November 4. President Putin has responded to public outrage over excesses by Russia's oligarchs and specifically to charges that Khodorkovsky was planning to sell control of Yukos to Western oil companies.
New York's transit fare jumps from $1.50 to $2.00 May 4 and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority stops accepting tokens in subway turnstiles, although bus drivers continue to accept them on a temporary basis (along with an additional 50¢).
Air France suspends its Concord flights in May; British Airways makes its final Concorde flight to New York October 23 and the SST returns to London the next day, ending the supersonic air travel that has never shown a profit.
A Lebanese-owned Union des Transports Africains Boeing 727 bound for Beirut tries to take off from Cotonou, Benin, December 26 and crashes into the Atlantic, killing at least 113 of the 158 aboard.
Afghanistan's highway between Kabul and Kandahar reopens December 16, having been paved by Allied occupation forces (see "Eisenhower" highway, 1966). Security on the 305-mile road remains an issue as Taliban forces and other insurgents try to reassert power with a resurgence of the opium trade.
Francis Collins of the National Institutes of Health Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics CEO J. Craig Venter work out their differences over pizza and beer at a Rockville, Md., town house May 7 and announce in late June that their respective groups have deciphered basically all of the 3.1 billion biochemical "letters" of DNA (see 2000). Venter's project has gone well beyond that of the NIH, scientists at the two projects have decoded 97 percent of the genome's letters (the remaining 3 percent are considered undecipherable), and while other scientists say the achievement holds vast promise for medical diagnosis and treatment there remain serious ethical questions with regard to how the new knowledge will be used and to what extent it may be commercialized.
Physicist Edward Teller dies at his Palo Alto, Calif., home September 9 at age 95; Nobel physicist Bertram N. Brockhouse at Hamilton, Ont., October 13 at age 85.
The biotechnology psoriasis drug Amevive made by Biogen Inc. wins Food and Drug Administration approval January 31, giving physicians a revolutionary new treatment for the debilitating skin ailment that affects more than 1.5 million Americans.
Chinese health officials come under attack for suppressing news of last year's SARS outbreak. Beijing physician Jiang Yanyong, 71, informs Communist Party officials that local hospitals have far more SARS patients than has been reported, the party leadership fires the minister of health, the city's mayor acknowledges having provided inaccurate information, but Jiang will be arrested next year and held in military custody for 45 days before being released.
Botox receives Food and Drug Administration approval April 15 for injection by plastic surgeons to remove frown lines between the eyebrows, if only temporarily. Made by a California company from the deadly botulinum toxin Type A, it has been approved earlier for two eye muscle disorders and a neurological cervical disorder. Supporters will claim that it also works as an anti-perspirant and relieves migraine headaches.
Hypertension expert Robert W. Wilkins dies at his Newburyport, Mass., home April 9 at age 96; immunologist Charles Janeway Jr. of cancer at his New Haven, Conn., home April 12 at age 60; Nobel biophysicist Sir Bernard Katz at London April 23 at age 92; Nobel virus researcher Frederick C. Robbins at Cleveland August 4 at age 86, having helped pioneer a polio vaccine in the 1950s; clinical pharmacologist Louis Lasagna of lymphoma at Newton, Mass., August 7 at age 80.
Physicians use gene therapy for the first time to treat Parkinson's disease August 18 in a procedure performed at New York-Presbyterian Hospital on independent television producer Nathan Klein, 55. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a Phase 1 trial to relieve 12 patients of tremors, shuffling gait, and other symptoms by infusing 3.5 billion viral particles into the brain, each particle bearing a copy of a human gene.
The Food and Drug Administration gives approval in August to use of human growth hormone (HGH) for otherwise healthy children whose predicted adult height is less than five foot three (boys) or four foot eleven (girls) (see 1971). Use heretofore has been approved only for children with medical conditions that limited their height. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine warns of possible risks that could include kidney problems, metabolic changes, and increased risk of cancer.
Medicare provides a phase-in of prescription-drug benefits under terms of a controversial bill signed into law by President Bush December 8. Critics object that it broadens the role of private insurance companies and HMOs, helps the pharmaceutical companies (whose lobbyists have spent millions to obtain its passage), prevents the government from using its massive purchasing power to obtain special rates on drugs (as the Veterans Administration does), will add at least $400 billion to the nation's deficit over the next 10 years, would cost trillions of dollars in years beyond 2013, and has actually been designed to undermine a system that has worked well since 1965 despite opposition from Republicans and fiscally-conservative Democrats. A Medicare actuary has projected that the bill would cost well over $500 million in its first 10 years but his report has been suppressed, the House of Representatives has approved the bill by a vote of 220 to 215 in the early hours of November 22 after several hours of bribery and arm-twisting, the Senate has voted 54 to 44 for approval, but few legislators have had time to read the entire 681-page document.
Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson calls the U.S. Supreme Court a "tyranny of an oligarchy" in a radio address June 21. Saying that the Court has "contorted the Constitution to mean that the people may not decide for themselves through their duly elected officials matters of moral and social importance," he urges that some justices (but not "conservative" ones) resign and encourages his followers to "throw off their shackles," telling them to ignore Court decisions such as those involving school prayer that they find to be contrary to their religion.
A report by Massachusetts attorney general Thomas F. Reilly made public July 23 reveals that priests and other church workers of Boston's Roman Catholic Archdiocese have sexually abused at least 789 children since 1940 and probably more than 1,000. The report calls it "the greatest tragedy to children in the history of the commonwealth."
Lt. Gen. William Boykin, 55, U.S. Army, creates controversy with speeches calling the United States "a Christian nation," saying that God put George Bush in the White House "by a miracle," and declaiming that the enemy is "a spiritual enemy that will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus and pray for this nation and for our leaders." Boykin denies that he is anti-Islam.
School prayer opponent Edward L. Schempp dies at Hayward, Calif., November 8 at age 95; TV evangelist Ted Garner Armstrong of pneumonia complications at Tyler, Texas, September 15 at age 73.
An Alabama ethics panel dismisses the state's chief justice Roy S. Moore, 56, from office November 13 for defying a court order to remove a 5,280-pound Vermont granite monument to the Ten Commandments that he had surreptitiously installed in the rotunda of the state's Judicial Building at Montgomery in August 2001 and that authorities removed 2 years later after suspending Moore. Sued by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups since the mid-1990s for displaying a Decalogue plaque in violation not only of the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment to the Constitution but also an article in the state constitution, Moore has lost in the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear his appeals for restoration of the monument; some organizations in the religious right have rallied to his defense, others have condemned him for flouting the law, and he remains adamant, telling his followers, "We have got to stop the hypocrisy in this country."
Evangelical Christian leader Carl F. H. Henry dies at Watertown, Wis., December 7 at age 90, having seen evangelicals gain enormous influence in determining U.S. foreign and domestic social policy.
France's president Jacques Chirac speaks out in mid-December to support a law that would ban head scarves for Muslim girls, large crosses, skullcaps for Jewish boys, and other "conspicuous" religious symbols in schools. A 67-page report delivered to Chirac December 11 has favored such action, recommending also that public schools be closed on Jewish and Muslim holidays as well as on Christian holidays, and that employers be urged to let employees choose what religious holidays they want to take off.
Looters strip Baghdad museums of priceless artifacts amidst the chaos that follows the downfall of the Saddam Hussein regime (they also loot hospitals, office buildings, homes, and shops). While U.S. and British planes and missiles carefully spared the museums, occupying troops failed to provide protection, and an estimated 170,000 pieces are destroyed or stolen, some dating to 5,000 B.C., but some of the looters return what they have stolen and 613 pieces turn up June 5 in a waterlogged crate found in the basement of a bombed-out central bank building. The gold jewelry, precious stones, and ornaments date from the height of the Assyrian Empire in about 800 B.C., collectively weigh more than 100 pounds, and include a gold necklace from Nimrud.
Saudi-supported madrasas in Pakistan and elsewhere continue to "educate" students in the teachings of the Koran and the evils of Western culture without preparing them for careers in secular life (see 2002). Anti-terrorist policies make no real effort to address the root causes of terrorism.
Former University of California president Clark Kerr dies at El Cerrito, Calif., December 1 at age 92.
A 7-to-2 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court January 15 upholds a 1998 law extending protection afforded by existing copyrights for 20 years (the life of the creator plus 70 years instead of 50, and for 95 years from date of publication instead of 75 in the case of copyrights held by corporations). The decision in Eldred v. Ashcroft keeps Mickey Mouse and other icons of American culture from falling into the public domain and represents a victory for Hollywood studios and other big corporate copyright holders who lobbied Congress to pass the 1998 measure. Justices Breyer and Stevens dissent, but Ruth Bader Ginsberg's majority opinion says that while Congress may have set poor public policy it was not overstepping its Constitutional authority.
The Dubai-based satellite television news channel Al Arabiya begins operating 24 hours per day March 3 with talk shows, in-depth documentaries, and educational and social programs that cover the Arab-speaking world through the Middle East, southeast Asia, and North Africa (see Al Jazeera, 1996).
A 3-to-2 Federal Communications Commission decision June 2 raises a storm of controversy by permitting further media consolidation that will allow companies to acquire more properties within any market (see 1996). Chairman Michael K. Powell (son of Secretary of State Colin F. Powell) defends the FCC ruling, but two members file vigorous dissent, and congressional Republicans joins with Democrats in questioning the move. The House votes 400 to 21 to block the new FCC ruling.
New Yorkers have to change their telephone habits beginning in December as Verizon requires callers to punch in a 1 followed by an area code before even local phone numbers. Proliferation of telephones has made it impossible even for some Manhattanites to obtain 212 area-code numbers.
AOL moves its technical support facilities to Bangalore and Mumbai (Bombay) as English-speaking computer technicians use their language and technological skills to solve problems of AOL subscribers in the United States and other English-speaking countries on the telephone and on line (see education, 1993).
New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, 27, resigns May 1 following revelations of plagiarism, errors, and outright falsification (see Stephen Glass, Patricia Smith, 1998). The Times runs a 14,000-word account of Blair's malfeasance May 11, citing 39 articles published over the course of 3 years, but it makes no contraction for stories it has run over the bylines of veteran Times military affairs reporter Michael R. Gordon and one-time Times Cairo bureau chief Judith Miller, 54, giving credence to Pentagon handouts about Iraq's supposed "weapons of mass destruction" (see 2004). Although the Times continues to stand head and shoulders above most other U.S. papers (the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal are its main challengers), the Blair incident raises questions about its having given preferable treatment to a black employee; executive editor Howell Raines, 60, and managing editor Gerald M. Boyd, 52, resign June 5 (seeUSA Today, 2004).
Zimbabwe police close down the country's biggest daily paper September 11 after the country's highest court rules that the opposition paper has been publishing illegally. Robert Mugabe's increasingly authoritarian government began last year to tighten controls on the media, and with its circulation of 100,000 the Daily News has been one of Zimbabwe's few independent news outlets, daring to speak out in a country where the unemployment rate is 70 percent, the inflation rate 450 percent, and shortages of food and gasoline are endemic.
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. launches a tabloid version of the 218-year-old Times of London in November to supplement its broadsheet, following the lead of its rival the Independent, whose tabloid version debuted in September, but it does not debase the paper's content.
Cartoonist Bill Mauldin dies of pneumonia at Newport Beach, Calif., January 22 at age 81 (he has had Alzheimer's disease); former New Yorker magazine cartoonist William Steig at Boston October 3 at age 95; columnist Irv Kupcinet at his native Chicago November 10 at age 91 (his final column for the Sun-Times ran November 6); Wall Street Journal editor Robert L. (LeRoy) "Bob" Bartley dies of cancer at New York December 10 at age 66, having headed the paper since 1979 and maintained a "Chinese wall" between its widely-admired news columns and its right-wing editorial views, helping to make its circulation higher than that of any other U.S. daily.
Onetime CBS war correspondent Larry LeSueur dies at his Washington, D.C., home February 5 at age 93; former news anchor David Brinkley at his Houston home June 11 at age 82.
Right-wing talk-show host Rush Limbaugh suspends broadcasts briefly in October to enter a drug-rehabilitation program. His maid has told the media about having purchased controlled substances for Limbaugh in a Florida parking lot.
Looters torch Baghdad's library after U.S. troops take the city, causing more destruction than the Mongols wreaked in 1258. Occupation troops have failed to protect the building, some of the lost treasures were 7,000 years old, they provided evidence of civilization's beginnings, including the invention of writing, but Basra librarian Alia Muhammad Baker, 50, rescues about 70 percent of the books in the Central Library of that British-occupied city, stacking roughly 30,000 volumes in her own house and those of her friends.
Nonfiction: The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad by Fareed Zakaria; Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order by Niall Ferguson; Empire Lite: Nation Building in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan by Michael Ignatieff; Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill by Jessica Stern; The Crisis of Islam by Bernard Lewis; Reading "Lolita" in Tehran (essays) by Iranian-born Washington, D.C., author Azar Nafisi, 53; No End to War: Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century by Walter Laqueur, now 82; Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum; Khrushchev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman; The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn by Diane Ravitch, who deplores self-censorship ("sanitizing") by textbook publishers to rid books of anything even the least bit "controversial" lest intimidation of school boards hurt sales; Who's Looking After You? by Bill O'Reilly; The Sorrows of Empire: How Americans Lost Their Country by Chalmers Johnson; Dude, Where's My Country? by film maker Michael Moore; Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right by Al Franken, who is sued by Fox News on charges that he infringed on the network's copyrighted slogan "fair and balanced" (a judge dismisses the suit as frivolous); What Liberal Media? The Truth about Bias and the News by Eric Alterman; America's Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines by Gail Collins; Global Women: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy by Barbara Ehrenreich; Parties Long Estranged: Canada and Australia in the Twentieth Century by historian Margaret Macmillan; Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose book contains few revelations but quickly earns back its $8 million advance; To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders by Bernard Bailyn, now 80; Benjamin Franklin and the Invention of America by Walter Isaacson; Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom by Conrad Black; Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag, who is outspoken in her criticism of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq; Rumsfeld: A Personal Portrait by Midge Decter; Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea by Robert K. Massie; Reefer Madness by Eric Schlosser is a study of America's trillion-dollar underground marijuana, pornography, and migrant labor economies; As of This Writing (essays) by Clive James; On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Life of Sir Christopher Wren by Lisa Jardine; Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town by Paul Theroux; End of the Earth: Voyages to Antarctica by Peter Matthiessen; Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester.
Historian Hugh Trevor-Roper dies at Oxford January 26 at age 89; literary critic Leslie Fiedler at his Buffalo, N.Y., home January 29 at age 85; sociologist Robert K. Merton at New York February 23 at age 92; historian Christopher Hill in Oxfordshire February 24 at age 91, having suffered for some years with Alzheimer's disease; black history expert August Meier dies of a progressive neurological disorder at his native New York March 19 at age 79; humorist Marion Hargrove of pneumonia complications at Long Beach, Calif., August 23 at age 83; human ecologist and author Garrett Hardin commits suicide at his Santa Barbara, Calif., home September 14 at age 88 (he has had a heart disorder and is joined by his wife, Jane, 7 years his junior, who has Lou Gehrig's disease; both have belonged to End-of-Life Choices, formerly the Hemlock Society); scholar and Palestinian independence advocate Edward W. Said dies of leukemia at New York September 24 at age 67; author-editor George Plimpton at his New York home September 26 at age 76; mass media critic Neil Postman of lung cancer at Flushing, Queens, October 5 at age 72; constitutional scholar John Hart Ely of cancer at Miami October 25 at age 64; former presidential adviser and author Richard E. Neustadt in England October 31 at age 84; literary critic Hugh Kenner of a heart ailment at Athens, Ga., November 24 at age 80.
Fiction: The Known World by Edward P. Jones; My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey; The Light of Day by Graham Swift; Crabwalk by Günter Grass; Monumental Propaganda (Monumental'naia propaganda) by Vladimir Voinovich, who regained his Russian citizenship in 1990 and now divides his time equally between Moscow and Munich; The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri; Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo; Mortals by Norman Rush; The Dirty Girls Social Club by Albuquerque, N.M.-born novelist Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, 37; The Da Vinci Code by Exeter, N.H.,-born novelist Dan Brown, 38, upsets religious groups by suggesting that Jesus married Mary Magdalene; Bay of Souls by Robert Stone; The Known World by Edward P. Jones; The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard; The Photograph by Penelope Lively; L'Affaire by Diane Johnson; Vernon God Little by Australian novelist DBC Pierre (Peter Warren Findlay), 42; The Liberated Bride by A. B. Yehoshua; American Woman by Susan Choi; By the Light of the Moon by Dean R. Koontz; The Scarlet Letters by Louis Auchincloss; The Second Time Around by Mary Higgins Clark; The Last Juror by John Grisham; Dead Ringer by Lisa Scottoline; The Murder Room by P. D. James, now 83.
Novelist Sébastien Japrisot (Jean Baptiste Rossi) dies at Vichy March 4 at age 71; Sloan Wilson near his Colonial Beach, Va., home May 25 at age 83, having suffered from Alzheimer's disease; Kathleen Winsor dies at her Manhattan apartment May 26 at age 83; Leon Uris at his Shelter Island, N.Y., home June 21 at age 78; science-fiction novelist Harry C. Stubbs (Hal Clement) at Milton, Mass., October 29 at age 81; novelist-journalist-screenwriter John Gregory Dunne of a heart attack at his New York apartment December 30 at age 71.
Poetry: Walking to Martha's Vineyard by Franz Wright; Middle Earth by Henri Cole; Eyeshot by Heather McHugh.
Juvenile: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling; The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamille; The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein; Olive's Ocean by Kevin Henkes; How I Became a Pirate by David Shannon.
Author Joan Lowery Nixon dies of pancreatic cancer at Houston July 5 at age 76, having written more than 140 books and seen some translated into more than 20 languages.
The Nasher Sculpture Center opens October 20 on a 2.4-acre site in downtown Dallas. Financed by Boston-born banker and real-estate developer Raymond D. Nasher, 82, the 54,000-square-foot building has been designed by Genoese architect Renzo Piano, now 63, to house modern works collected by Nasher and his late wife, Patsy.
Artforum magazine cofounder John Coplans dies at New York August 21 at age 83.
Minox minicamera inventor Walter Zapp dies at his home in northern Switzerland July 17 at age 97.
Theater: No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs by John Henry Redwood 1/31 at Philadelphia's Players Theater, with Elizabeth Van Dyke, Marcus Taylor (the Philadelphia Inquirer is so fearful of offending readers that it calls the play No ****, No ****, No Dogs); Enchanted April by Matthew Barber (based on the Elizabeth von Arnim novel) 4/4 at New York's Belasco Theater, with Molly Ringwald, New Orleans-born actress Patricia Clarkson, 43, Elizabeth Ashley, Jayne Atkinson; The Retreat from Moscow by William Nicholson 10/23 at New York's Booth Theater, with John Lithgow, Eileen Atkins, London-born actor Ben Chapin, 33, 148 perfs.; The Pollowman by Martin McDonagh 11/13 at London's National Theatre, Cottesloe, with Jim Broadbent, Adam Godley, David Tennant; Anna in the Tropics by Cuban-born Miami-raised playwright Nilo Cruz, 32, 11/16 at New York's Royale Theater, with Jimmy Smits, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Priscilla Lopez, John Ortiz, 113 perfs.; I'm My Own Wife by U.S. playwright Doug Wright 12/3 at New York's Lyceum Theater, with Jefferson Mays as the East German transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorff (originally Lothar Berfelde), who died last year (Mays also plays about 35 other roles) (360 perfs.).
Playwright Jean Kerr dies of pneumonia at White Plains, N.Y., January 5 at age 80; playwright Sylvia Regan at her native New York January 18 at age 93; veteran theater cartoonist Al Hirschfeld at his Manhattan home January 20 at age 99 (the Martin Beck Theater is renamed in his honor in June); playwright Louis LaRusso II dies of bladder cancer at Jersey City, N.J., February 22 at age 67; playwright Philip Yordan of pancreatic cancer at San Diego March 24 at age 88; playwright Paul Zindel of cancer at New York March 27 at age 66; playwright Jack Gelber of macroglobulinemia (blood cancer) at New York May 9 at age 71; actor-playwright John Henry Redwood of heart disease at his South Philadelphia home June 17 at age 60; playwright George Axelrod of heart failure in his sleep at his Los Angeles home June 21 at age 81; playwright Herb Gardner of lung disease at his New York home September 24 at age 68; actress-turned-psychoanalyst Janice Rule at her New York home October 17 at age 72.
Television: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy 7/15 on Bravo (and 7/24 on NBC) with real-life experts Ted Allen, Kyam Douglas, Jai Rodriguez, Thom Felicia, and Carson Kressley as New York gays who restyle a heterosexual man each week in a "reality" show that gains a wide audience but draws criticism both for stereotyping homosexuals and promoting the gay life style; Joan of Arcadia 9/26 on CBS with Amber Tamblyn, Joe Montegna; Cold Case 9/28 on CBS with Kathryn Morris as a Philadelphia detective; Arrested Development 11/13 on Fox with Jason Bateman in a sitcom created by Mitchell Hurwitz.
Former Public Broadcasting hosting Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood fame dies of stomach cancer at his Pittsburgh home February 27 at age 74; "laughtrack" inventor Charles Douglass at Templeton, Calif., April 8 at age 93; actor Robert Stack of prostate cancer at his Los Angeles home May 14 at age 84; actor-comedian Art Carney at Chester, Conn., November 9 at age 85.
Films: Peter Weir's Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World with Russell Crowe as Capt. Jack Aubrey of H.M.S. Surprise, Paul Bettany as naturalist and ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin. Also: Claude Lelouch's And Now Ladies and Gentlemen with Jeremy Irons, cabaret singer Patricia Kaas; Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain with Jude Law, Nicole Kidman; Stephen Frears's Dirty Pretty Things with Audrey Tautou, Sergi López, Chlwetel Ejliofor; Gus Van Sant's Elephant with Elias McConnell (about the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School); Jim Sheridan's In America with Samantha Morton, Paddy Considine; Edward Zwick's The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe; Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with Cate Blanchett, Dominic Monaghan, Elijah Wood, Hugh Weaving, John Rhys-Davies, Liv Tyler, Miranda Otto, Orlando Bloom; Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation with Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson; Peter Mullan's The Magdalene Sisters with Anne-Marie Duff, Nora-Jane Noone, Dorothy Duffy; Patty Jenkins's Monster with South African-born actress Charlize Theron, 28 (as the Florida prostitute who was executed last year for murdering six men), Christina Ricci; Carma Hinton and Geremie Barmé's documentary Morning Sun about China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution; Clint Eastwood's Mystic River with Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne; Kevin Costner's Open Range with Robert Duvall, Costner, Diego Luna; Peter Hedges's Pieces of April with Katie Holmes, Patricia Clarkson, Derek Luke, Oliver Platt; Andrey Zvyagantsev's The Return with Ivan Dobronravov; Gary Ross's Seabiscuit with Jeff Bridges, Chris Cooper, Tobey Maguire; Billy Ray's Shattered Glass with Hayden Christensen as fraudulent journalist Stephen Glass (see communications, 1998); Nancy Meyers's Something's Gotta Give with Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton; Tom McCarthy's The Station Master with Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson, Bobby Cannevale; Sylvain Chomet's animated feature The Triplets of Belleville with the voices of Jean-Claude Donda, Michel Robin, Monica Viegas; Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams with Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio Del Torro; Joel Schumacher's Veronica Guerin with Cate Blanchett as the late Irish journalist (see communications, 1996); Niki Caro's Whale Rider with Keisha Castle-Hughes; Jacques Perrin's documentary Winged Migration.
Producer-director Norman Panama dies at Los Angeles January 13 at age 88; actor Alberto Sordi of a heart attack at Rome February 24 at age 82; actress Peggy Conklin at her Naples, Fla., home March 18 at age 96; Wendy Hiller at her Beaconsfield, England, home May 14 at age 90; Martha Scott at Van Nuys, Calif., May 28 at age 90; Gregory Peck at his Los Angeles home June 12 at age 87; Hume Cronyn at his Fairfield, Conn., home June 15 at age 91; Katharine Hepburn at her Old Saybrook, Conn., home June 29 at age 96; comedian Buddy Hackett at his Malibu, Calif., beach house June 30 at age 78; comedian Buddy Ebsen at Torrance, Calif., July 6 at age 95; director John Schlesinger at Palm Springs, Calif., July 25 at age 77; comedian Bob Hope of pneumonia at Los Angeles July 28 at age 100; dancer-actor Gregory Hines of cancer at Los Angeles August 9 at age 57; actor Charles Bronson of pneumonia at Los Angeles August 30 at age 81; documentary filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl at her home south of Munich September 8 at age 101; dancer-singer-actor Donald O'Connor at Woodland Hills, Calif., September 27 at age 78; director Elia Kazan at his New York home September 28 at age 94; Jeanne Crain of a heart attack at her Santa Barbara, Calif., home December 14 at age 78; Hope Lange of an intestinal infection at Santa Monica December 21 at age 70; Alan Bates of pancreatic cancer at London December 27 at age 69.
Broadway musicals: Avenue Q 7/31 at the Golden Theater, with John Tartaglia, Jordan Gelber, Stephanie d'Abruzzo, puppets a la Sesame Street, music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, songs that include "There's a Fine, Fine Line;" The Boy from Oz (From Down Under to Over the Top) 9/16 at the Imperial Theater, with Sydney-born actor Hugh Jackman, 36, music and lyrics by the late Australian writer, composer, and actor Peter Allen (who died in 1992) (364 perfs.); Wicked 10/30 at the Gershwin Theater, with Joel Grey, Syosset, N.Y.-born performer Idina Menzel, 32, as the Wicked Witch of the West, Tulsa-born performer Kristin Chenoweth, 35, as the Good Witch, music by Stephen Schwartz, book by Winnie Holzman, songs that include "Popular."
Popular songs: "Dance With My Father" by Richard Marx and Luther Vandross; "Clocks" by Coldplay; Kid Rock (CD) by the Detroit rap artist; Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (CD) by OutKast.
Singer-songwriter Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees collapses with an intestinal blockage and dies of cardiac arrest at Miami January 12 at age 53; songwriter Doris Fisher dies at Los Angeles January 22 at age 87; actress-singer Nell Carter at her Beverly Hills, Calif., home January 23 at age 54, having survived two brain aneurisms; folk singer Tom Glazer dies at his Philadelphia home February 21 at age 88; rhythm-and-blues composer-singer Hank Ballard of throat cancer at Los Angeles March 9 at age 75; lyricist Felice Bryant of cancer at her Gatlinburg, Tenn., home April 22 at age 77; soul singer and civil-rights activist Nina Simone at her home outside Marseilles April 21 at age 70; country music singer-songwriter June Carter Cash following heart-valve surgery at Nashville May 15 at age 73; flutist Herbie Mann of prostate cancer at his home outside Santa Fe July 1 at age 73; composer-arranger-instrumentalist Benny Carter at Los Angeles July 12 at age 95; singer-guitarist Compay Segundo of Buena Vista Social Club fame at his Havana home July 13 at age 95; Celia Cruz at her Fort Lee, N.J., home July 16 at age 78 (approximate) following surgery for a brain tumor; Sun Records founder (and Elvis Presley discoverer) Sam Phillips dies of respiratory failure at Memphis July 30 at age 80; country singer Johnny Cash of diabetes complications at Nashville September 11 at age 71; tenor Bobby Hatfield of the Righteous Brothers in a Kalamazoo, Mich., hotel room November 5 at age 63; country music songwriter Don Gibson at Nashville November 17 at age 75; lyricist Gladys Shelley at her New York home December 9 at age 92.
The Seattle Opera's Marion Oliver McCaw Hall opens July 16 with a performance of Wagner's Parsifal. Originally built as the Seattle Opera House in 1928, the civic auditorium has been renovated at a cost of $127 million.
Former Metropolitan Opera bass Jerome Hines dies at New York February 4 at age 81; onetime ballerina Vera Zorina at her Santa Fe, N.M., home April 9 at age 86; former Met tenor Franco Corelli of heart disease at Milan October 29 at age 82.
Former New York Philharmonic flutist Julius Baker dies at Danbury, Conn., August 6 at age 87.
New York's 644-seat Judy and Arthur Zankel Hall auditorium opens September 12 in the 112-year-old Carnegie Hall. James Stewart Polshek and Richard M. Olcott of the Polshek Partnership have designed the recital hall, workers have excavated 6,300 cubic yards of bedrock directly under Carnegie Hall's main stage, and Zankel Hall supplements the building's 268-seat Sanford I. Weil Recital Hall.
The 84-year-old Los Angeles Philharmonic moves October 23 into the new Walt Disney Concert Hall designed by Frank Gehry. Helsinki-born conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen, 45, has directed the Philharmonic since November 1984 and been its musical director since 1994. Disney's late widow, Lilian, contributed $50 million for the hall more than a decade ago and other philanthropists have come up with another $224 million for the 2,265-seat hall, which sits atop the downtown Bunker Hill district and has acoustics designed by Japanese engineers Yasushia Toyota and Minoru Nagata.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers win Super Bowl XXXVII at San Diego January 26, defeating the Oakland Raiders 48 to 21. Onetime Cleveland Brown quarterback Otto Graham dies of an aortic aneurism at Sarasota, Fla., December 17 at age 82.
Roger Federer, 21, (Switz.) wins in men's singles at Wimbledon, Serena Williams in women's; Andy Roddick, 21, (U.S.) wins in U.S. men's singles play, Justine Hardenne, 21, (Belg.) in women's. Althea Gibson dies at East Orange, N.J., September 28 at age 76.
The Florida Marlins win their second World Series, defeating the New York Yankees 4 games to 2, even though their payroll is one-third that of the Yankees.
Baseball legend Warren Spahn dies at Broken Arrow, Okla., November 24 at age 82.
Jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. retires April 29 at age 56, having suffered a broken neck at Santa Anita March 29 after a career in which he set an all-time record with 9,531 victories; jockey Johnny Longden has died at his Banning, Calif., home February 14 on his 96th birthday, having ridden 32,413 mounts and won 6,032 races; jockey Bill Shoemaker dies at his San Marino Calif., October 12 at age 72, having ridden 40,350 horses and won with 8,833 that included four Kentucky Derby, three Preakness, and five Belmont Stakes winners in 20 years.
Channel swimmer Gertrude Ederle dies at Wyckoff, N.J., November 30 at age 98, having been stone deaf for 75 years.
A West Warwick, R.I., nightclub fire at The Station February 20 kills at least 100 and injures close to 200. A pyrotechnic display set off by the heavy-metal group Great White has started the worst such conflagration in 25 years.
Moral crusader William J. Bennett announces May 5 that he has set a poor example and will quit gambling. Now 59 and a longtime compulsive gambler, he has excluded gambling from his list of sins, weaknesses, and vices, but he confirms that he has wagered "large sums of money" (he has reportedly lost $8 million at casinos over the past decade).
Former Louis Vuitton CEO Henry Racamier dies while traveling in Sardinia March 28 at age 90; fashion arbiter Eleanor Lambert dies at her New York apartment October 7 at age 100.
The National Rifle Association uses its political clout in April to shelve a proposed Department of Justice program that would have established a national ballistics forensics database enabling the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) to compare microscopic markings on bullets found at crime scenes with test firings of new guns.
Texas governor Rick Perry issues pardons August 22 to 35 people arrested at Tulia in the Panhandle 4 years ago on drug charges; 31 of the 35 are black; undercover agent Tom Coleman has been indicted for perjury, his "evidence" has unraveled, and lawyers for those convicted press for a court order that would outlaw further drug stings that singled out blacks at Tulia.
Serial killer Gary L. Ridgway, 54, pleads guilty in a Seattle court November 5 to having strangled 48 young women to death in the 1980s, most of them prostitutes or runaways whom he killed in his suburban Seattle home or in his pickup truck while having sex with them.
Tokyo's $4 billion Roppongi Hills project opens in April with the 54-story Mori Tower (Japan's largest office building) plus a shopping mall and residential buildings. Dozens of new skyscrapers open elsewhere in the city and quickly find tenants as Japan begins to emerge from recession and deflation.
Mexico City's 55-story Torre Mayor is completed on a 1½-acre site with backing from Toronto developer Paul Reichmann. Tallest structure in Latin America, the 732-foot office tower is 30 feet higher than the 52-story Petróleos Mexicanos building that previously enjoyed that distinction.
New York's Mandarin Oriental Hotel opens December 1 with 251 rooms occupying floors 35 through 48 of the 89-story south tower of the Time Warner Center. Rates for rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows range from $595 to $895 per night, with suites going for $1,600 to $12,000 per night, and guests can enjoy a two-story spa and fitness center with a 75-lap pool.
An Algerian earthquake outside Algiers May 21 kills more than 2,200 people and injures at least 10,000, shaking confidence in a government plagued by corruption and mismanagement that has permitted shoddy construction; a December 26 earthquake registering 6.7 on the standard magnitude scale shatters Iran's ancient city of Bam 610 miles southeast of Teheran, toppling structures in a city of about 200,000, leaving 26,796 dead and more than 50,000 injured, many of them critically; false rumors spread that the government has somehow conducted an underground nuclear test.
New regulations issued by the Bush administration June 4 exempt most logging projects from the appeals process as part of the so-called "Healthy Forests Initiative" (see 2001); 18 environmental and conservation organizations file suit June 30 to block the regulations, saying it was written by timber interests and the administration "is trying to use our National Forests as scapegoats for people's fears of forest fires," but supporters of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (McInnis Walden Act) signed into law by the president December 3 insist that it will save human life while protecting endangered species (see 2004).
Nature Conservancy founder Richard Pough dies at his Chilmark, Mass., home June 27 at age 99.
Europe has her warmest summer in memory, with temperatures in July and August remaining at uncomfortable levels for weeks on end.
A typhoon hits South Korea in mid-September, taking an estimated 124 lives and causing $1.6 billion in damage to the country's industrial southeast.
British Columbia has its worst forest fires in decades beginning with a lightning strike on tinder-dry woodlands some 185 miles east of Vancouver August 16. Flames rising 400 feet high and racing from treetop to treetop at 100 yards per minute force 30,000 to evacuate their homes. Southern California brush fires in October consume more than 750,000 acres of forest lands, destroy more than 3,570 homes, foul the air, leave 22 dead, and cost billions of dollars in the state's worst such disaster ever. Arson is suspected in at least one of the fires, Santa Ana winds have whipped up flames hundreds of feet high, more than 11,000 firefighters have worked round the clock to halt at least 14 conflagrations, some have come from Arizona and Nevada, but at least one man is lost.
Environmental Protection Agency lawyers say in early November that the EPA has adopted new regulations that will mean dropping investigations into power plants for past violations of the Clean Air Act. The move affects some 50 plants owned by 10 public-utility companies across the United States. EPA officials have reportedly been negotiating in private for months with large industrial livestock farms to offer them amnesty from the Clean Air Act and existing Superfund laws, with the industry pledging voluntary monitoring of its air and water for 2 years in exchange.
Russia will not ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on global warming, Kremlin official Andrei N. Illarionov tells European businessmen December 2. Russian emissions of greenhouse gases have declined with the collapse of the nation's industry in recent years, and the Putin government has taken its cue from the Bush administration's reluctance to control emissions (but see 2004).
Diet guru Robert Atkins suffers a head injury April 8 after slipping on an icy New York sidewalk and dies at Weill-Cornell Medical Center April 16 at age 72 even as the low-carbohydrate diet he has promoted for more than 30 years gains new adherents despite warnings that it may contribute to heart disease and osteoporosis, and is no more effective in weight loss than other diets. Heavily advertised, the Atkins Diet attracts so many people that it has a devastating effect on the milling and baking industries.
The South Beach Diet Book by Miami cardiologist Arthur Agatson, 57, challenges the Atkins diet by advising dieters to avoid bread, pasta, rice, all sugars, and alcohol for 2 weeks but then adding back whole-grain breads, some fruits, and wine. Opposing saturated fats (found in meats, dairy products, and fried foods) for heart patients, Agatson originally put forth his ideas 7 years ago in a 10-page pamphlet entitled "The Modified Carbohydrate Diet," recommending that people cut out processed carbohydrates such as white bread and white sugar while continuing to eat whole grains and vegetables. Published by the Rodale Press in April, the new book quickly exhausts its 50,000-copy first printing, and while an estimated 250 diet books are published each year The South Beach Diet Book gets so much Internet publicity that it soon has sales of 65,000 copies per week.
Food Fight by Evansville, Ind.-born Yale public health professor Kelly D. Brownell, 51, and Katherine Battle Horgen urges taxation of unhealthy foods that are contributing to the epidemic of obesity that threatens to cause more premature deaths even than tobacco.
U.S. authorities ban imports of beef from Canada in May after a single Alberta beef animal tests positive for "mad cow disease." U.S. agriculture suffers a devastating setback nearly 8 months later as more than 25 foreign countries ban imports of the nation's beef because of possible bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), which has in rare instances been related to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. Department of Agriculture inspectors examine tissue from a Washington state Holstein dairy cow with a neurological problem and confirm December 23 that the meat tested positive but officials insist that the U.S. food supply is safe and it then turns out the Holstein cow came from Alberta. Japan and some European countries test every animal for BSE, the United States tests only a small percentage, meat from downed cows is commonly used in hamburgers, and the Washington state case brings demands for more extensive (and expensive) testing to keep the food supply as safe as the USDA claims.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration decides August 1 that warning labels are "no longer warranted" on snack foods made with Procter & Gamble's fat substitute olestra, though its ingestion has been associated with diarrhea and cramping (see 1996). More than 20,000 people have complained to the FDA about such symptoms after eating products such as Pringles fat-free chips and consumer groups protest the decision, but P&G insists that gastrointestinal problems are common and few can be related clearly to olestra.
The FDA announces December 30 that it will ban dietary supplements containing ephedra following more than 18,000 reports of adverse effects, including heart attacks, psychiatric problems, seizures, strokes, and a series of deaths attributed to ephedra. Pending implementation of the ban in 2 months, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson urges people to stop using ephedra, taken by many to lose weight. The 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act spares makers from having to prove the safety and efficacy of such products, and the ephedra ban is the first imposed since that law took effect (see nutrition, 1994).
Parmalat SpA 65-year-old founder Calisto Tanzi resigns in December from his position as CEO of the 42-year-old Italian food group and the company files for bankruptcy protection following revelations that more than $5 billion is missing from overseas accounts; estimates of the missing funds soon double, Parmalat has grown to have 146 plants employing more than 36,200 people in 30 countries, and the financial scandal is one of the largest in European history.
A bill to prohibit what its proponents call "partial-birth abortion" passes the U.S. Senate by a vote of 64 to 34 October 21 (the House passed it October 2 by a vote of 281 to 142; see 1995). President Bush signs it into law November 5, but legal experts note that what Bush has called "an abhorrent procedure" is rarely performed, that the Supreme Court rejected a similar law 3 years ago, that it lets government intervene in a matter that should be between a woman and her physician, and that it represents part of an effort to overturn the 30-year-old decision in Roe v. Wade, even though "pro-life" activists have made it difficult to obtain a legal abortion in much of the country. Several judges next year will find the new law unconstitutional.
