2000
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2000 (
MM) was a
leap year that started on a Saturday, in accordance with the
Gregorian Calendar. It was the 2000th year of the
Common Era or the
Anno Domini designation, and the last year of the
20th century and of the
2nd millennium. 2000 was designated as:
The year 2000 was the first year of the
2000s decade. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the
21st century and the
3rd millennium, due to a tendency to group the years according to
decimal values, as if
year zero were counted. According to the Gregorian Calendar this distinction falls to the year
2001, because the first century was retroactively said to start with year
AD 1. Since the calendar has no
year zero, its first millennium spans from years 1 to 1000, inclusive, and its second millennium from years 1001 to 2000. (See more at
Millennium.)
The year 2000 was the subject of
Y2K concerns: fears that computers would not shift from 1999 to 2000 correctly. However, by the end of 1999, many companies had already converted to new, or upgraded their existing, software. Some even obtained
Y2K certification. In the actual event, relatively few problems occurred.
[edit] Events
[edit] January
[edit] February
- June 5 – 405 The Movie, the first short film widely distributed on the Internet, is released.
- June 13 – South Korean President Kim Dae Jung visits North Korea to participate in the first North-South presidential summit.
- June 17 – A centennial earthquake (6.5 on Richter scale) hits Iceland on its national day.
- June 21 – Section 28, a law preventing the promotion of homosexuality, is repealed by the Scottish Parliament.
- June 26 – A preliminary draft of genomes, as part of the Human Genome Project, is finished.
- June 28 – Elian Gonzalez returns to Cuba with his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, ending a protracted custody battle.
- June 30 – At the Roskilde Festival near Copenhagen, Denmark, 9 die and 26 are injured on a set while the rock group Pearl Jam performs.
- July 2 – France defeats Italy 2-1 after extra time in the final of the European Championships, becoming the first team to consecutively win the World Cup and European Championships.
- July 2 – Vicente Fox is elected President of Mexico, as candidate of the rightist PAN (National Action Party), ending 71 years of PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) rule.
- July 10 – In southern Nigeria, a leaking petroleum pipeline explodes, killing about 250 villagers who were scavenging gasoline.
- July 10 – Bashar al-Assad is confirmed as Syria's leader in a national referendum.
- July 11–25 – Israel's prime minister Ehud Barak and PLO head Yasser Arafat meet at Camp David, but fail to reach an agreement.
- July 14 – A powerful solar flare, later named the Bastille Day event, causes a geomagnetic storm on Earth.
- July 18 – Alex Salmond resigns as the leader of the Scottish National Party.
- July 21–23 – G-8 Nations hold their 26th Annual Summit; issues include AIDS, the 'digital divide', and halving world poverty by 2015.
- July 22 – News of the World urges its readers to sign a petition for Sarah's Law, new legislation in response to the murder of Sarah Payne, which would give parents the right to know whether a convicted paedophile was living in their area.
- July 25 – Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde aircraft, crashes into a hotel in Gonesse just after takeoff from Paris, killing all 109 aboard and 4 in the hotel.
- July 30 – Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez is reelected with 59% of the vote.
- July 31 – August 3 – The Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania nominates George W. Bush for U.S. President and Dick Cheney for Vice President.
[edit] August
[edit] September
[edit] October
- October 1 – The 2000 Summer Olympics close in Sydney, Australia.
- October 5 – President Slobodan Milošević leaves office after widespread demonstrations throughout Serbia.
- October 6 – The last Mini is produced in Longbridge.
- October 11 – 250 million gallons of coal sludge spill in Martin County, Kentucky (considered a greater environmental disaster than the Exxon Valdez oil spill).
- October 12 – In Aden, Yemen, the USS Cole is badly damaged by two Al-Qaeda suicide bombers, who place a small boat laden with explosives alongside the United States Navy destroyer, killing 17 crew members and wounding at least 39.
- October 21 – Fifteen Arab leaders convene in Cairo, Egypt, for their first summit in 4 years; the Libyan delegation walks out, angry over signs the summit will stop short of calling for breaking ties with Israel.
- October 22 – The Mainichi Shinbun newspaper exposes Japanese archeologist Shinichi Fujimura as a fraud; Japanese archaeologists had based their treatises on his findings.
- October 23 – Madeleine Albright holds talks with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il.
- October 26 – Pakistani authorities announce that their police have found an apparently ancient mummy of a Persian princess in the province of Balochistan. Iran, Pakistan and the Taliban all claim the mummy until Pakistan announces it is a forgery on April 17, 2001.
- October 27 – Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).
- October 30 – This is the final date during which there is no human presence in space; on October 31, Soyuz TM-31 launches, carrying the first resident crew to the International Space Station. The ISS has been continuously crewed since.
- October 31 – Singapore Airlines Flight 006 collides with construction equipment in the Chiang Kai Shek International Airport, resulting in 83 deaths.
[edit] November
- November – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq rejects new U.N. Security Council weapons inspections proposals.
- November 2 – The first resident crew enters the International Space Station.
- November 3 – Widespread flooding occurs throughout England and Wales after days of heavy rain.
- November 7 – United States presidential election, 2000: Republican candidate Texas Governor George W. Bush defeats Democratic Vice President Al Gore in one of the closest elections in history, but the final outcome is not known for over a month because of disputed votes in Florida.
- November 7 – In London, a criminal gang raids the Millennium Dome to steal The Millennium Star diamond, but police surveillance catches them in the act.
- November 7 – Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected to the United States Senate, becoming the first First Lady of the United States to win public office.
- November 11 – Kaprun disaster, Austria: A funicular fire in an Alpine tunnel kills 155 skiers and snowboarders.
- November 15 – A new Indian state called Jharkhand is formed, carving out the South Chhota Nagpur area from Bihar in India.
- November 16 – Bill Clinton becomes the first sitting U.S. President to visit Vietnam.
- November 17 – A catastrophic landslide in Log pod Mangartom, Slovenia, kills 7, and causes millions of SIT of damage. It is one of the worst catastrophes in Slovenia in the past 100 years.
- November 17 – Alberto Fujimori is removed from office as president of Peru.
- November 27 – Jean Chrétien is re-elected as Prime Minister of Canada, as the Liberal Party increases its majority in the House of Commons.
- November 28 – Ukrainian politician Oleksander Moroz touches off the Cassette Scandal by publicly accusing President Leonid Kuchma of involvement in the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze.
[edit] December
[edit] World population
| World population[10] |
| 2000 | 1995 | 2005 |
| World | 6,070,581,000 | 5,674,380,000 | +396,201,000 | +6,98% | 6,453,628,000 | +383,047,000 | +6,31% |
| Africa | 795,671,000 | 707,462,000 | +88,209,000 | +12,47% | 887,964,000 | +92,293,000 | +11,60% |
| Asia | 3,679,737,000 | 3,430,052,000 | +249,685,000 | +7,28% | 3,917,508,000 | +237,771,000 | +6,46% |
| Europe | 727,986,000 | 727,405,000 | +581,000 | +0,08% | 724,722,000 | -3,264,000 | -0,45% |
| Latin America | 520,229,000 | 481,099,000 | +39,130,000 | +8,13% | 558,281,000 | +38,052,000 | +7,31% |
| Northern America | 315,915,000 | 299,438,000 | +16,477,000 | +5,50% | 332,156,000 | +16,241,000 | +5,14% |
| Oceania | 31,043,000 | 28,924,000 | +2,119,000 | +7,33% | 32,998,000 | +1,955,000 | +6,30% |
[edit] Births
[edit] Deaths
Main article:
Deaths in 2000[edit] January
[edit] February
- February 5 – Claude Autant-Lara, French film director (b. 1901)
- February 5 – Ward Cornell, Canadian radio/TV broadcaster & educator (b. 1924)
- February 7 – Doug Henning, Canadian magician (b. 1947)
- February 7 – Big Pun, American rapper (b. 1971)
- February 9 – Beau Jack, American boxer (b. 1921)
- February 10 – Jim Varney, American actor noted for his character, Ernest P. Worrell. (b. 1949)
- February 11 – Roger Vadim, French film director and producer (b. 1928)
- February 12 – Tom Landry, American football coach (b. 1924)
- February 12 – Charles M. Schulz, American comic strip artist (Peanuts) (b. 1922)
- February 13 – Anders Aalborg, Canadian politician (b. 1914)
- February 19 – Friedensreich Hundertwasser, artist (b. 1928)
- February 23 – Sir Stanley Matthews, English footballer (b. 1915)
- February 23 – Ofra Haza, Israeli singer (b. 1957)
- April 2 – Tommaso Buscetta, Sicilian mafioso informant (b. 1928)
- April 3 – Terence McKenna, Writer, Philosopher, Ethnobotanist and Shaman (b. 1946)
- April 4 – Derek Allhusen, British equestrian (b. 1914)
- April 5 – Lee Petty, American race car driver (b. 1914)
- April 6 – Habib Bourguiba, Tunisian politician, 1st President of Tunisia (b. 1903)
- April 11 – Diana Darvey, British actress, singer and dancer (b. 1945)
- April 14 – Phil Katz, American computer programmer (b. 1962)
- April 15 – Edward Gorey, American writer and illustrator (b. 1925)
- April 25 – David Merrick, American stage producer (b. 1911)
- April 29 – Phạm Văn Đồng, Vietnamese politician, Prime Minister of Vietnam (b. 1906)
- May 1 – Steve Reeves, American actor and bodybuilder (b. 1926)
- May 7 – Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., American actor (b. 1909)
- May 10 – Craig Stevens, American actor (b. 1918)
- May 11 – René Muñoz, Cuban actor, screenwriter of telenovelas and the cinema of Mexico (b. 1938)
- May 13 – Tomomi Tsuruta, Former Japanese professional wrestler, better known as Jumbo Tsuruta (b. 1951)
- May 14 – Keizō Obuchi, Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1937)
- May 20 – Edward Bernds, American director (b. 1905)
- May 21 – Dame Barbara Cartland, English novelist (b. 1901)
- May 21 – Sir John Gielgud, English actor (b. 1904)
- May 27 – Maurice Richard, Canadian hockey player (b. 1921)
- May 27 – Kazimierz Leski, Polish engineer, fighter pilot, and Home Army's intelligence and counter-intelligence officer (b. 1912)
- May 30 – Doris Hare, English actress, well known for her role in the 1970s comedy, On the Buses (b. 1905)
- May 31 – Tito Puente, American jazz musician (b. 1923)
- July 1 – Walter Matthau, American actor (b. 1920)
- July 7 – James C. Quayle, American newspaper publisher (b. 1921)
- July 8 – FM-2030, Transhumanist philosopher (b. 1930)
- July 10 – Vakkom Majeed, Indian Freedom fighter, Travancore-Cochin Legislative member (b. 1909)
- July 10 – Denis O'Conor Don, hereditary chief of the O'Conor Don sept of Ireland (b. 1912)
- July 11 – Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1921)
- July 12 – Charles Merritt, Canadian Army officer and recipient of the Victoria Cross during World War II (b. 1908)
- July 28 – Abraham Pais, Dutch-born American physicist (b. 1918)
- July 29 – René Favaloro, Argentinian cardiologist who created the technique for coronary bypass surgery (b. 1923)
[edit] August
- August 5 – Sir Alec Guinness, English actor and writer (b. 1914)
- August 5 – Otto Buchsbaum, writer and ecological activist (b. 1920)
- August 6 – Sir Robin Day, British political broadcaster (b. 1923)
- August 9 – John Harsanyi, Hungarian-born economist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1920)
- August 12 – Loretta Young, American actress (b. 1913)
- August 12 – Dave Edwards, American musician (b. 1941)
- August 19 – Bineshwar Brahma, Bodo activist and leader (b. 1946)
- August 21 – Daniel Lisulo, Zambian politician (b. 1930)
- August 25 – Carl Barks, American cartoonist (b. 1901)
- August 26 – Bunny Austin, English tennis player (b. 1906)
[edit] September
- September 2 – Elvera Sanchez, American dancer (b. 1905)
- September 2 – Curt Siodmak, American novelist and screenwriter (b. 1902)
- September 14 – Beah Richards, American actress (b. 1920)
- September 16 – Georgiy Gongadze, Ukrainian journalist (b. 1969)
- September 19 – Anthony Robert Klitz, British artist (b 1917)
- September 25 – R. S. Thomas, Welsh poet (b. 1913)
- September 26 – Richard Mulligan, American actor (b. 1932)
- September 27 – Sammy Luftspring, Canadian boxer (b. 1916)
- September 28 – Peter Gennaro, American dancer and choreographer (b. 1919)
- September 28 – Pierre Trudeau, Former Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1919)
[edit] October
- October 4 – Michael Smith, English-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1932)
- October 6 – Richard Farnsworth, American actor (b. 1920)
- October 8 – Sheila Holland (Sheila Coates, Charlotte Lamb, Sheila Lancaster, Victoria Wolf, Laura Hardy), English writer (b. 1937)
- October 9 – Patrick Anthony Porteous, Scottish recipient of the Victoria Cross (b. 1918)
- October 13 – Jean Peters, American actress (b. 1926)
- October 13 – Tony Roper, NASCAR driver (b. 1964)
- October 15 – Konrad Emil Bloch, German-born biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1912)
- October 18 – Julie London, American singer and actress (b. 1926)
- October 21 – Reginald Kray, leading figure in organised crime in London, UK (b. 1933)
- October 23 – Rodney Anoa'i, American wrestler known as Yokozuna (b. 1966)
- October 27 – Walter Berry, Austrian bass-baritone (b. 1929)
- October 29 – Andújar Cedeño, Dominican Major League Baseball player for the Houston Astros (b. 1969)
- October 30 – Steve Allen, American comedian, composer, talk show host, and author (b. 1921)
- October 31 – Ring Lardner, Jr., American screenwriter, one of the Hollywood Ten (b. 1915)
[edit] November
- November 5 – David Brower, American environmental activist (b. 1912)
- November 5 – Roger Peyrefitte, French writer and diplomat (b. 1907)
- November 6 – L. Sprague de Camp, American writer (b. 1907)
- November 7 – C Subramaniam, Indian politician (b. 1910)
- November 7 – Ingrid of Sweden, Queen consort of Frederick IX of Denmark (b. 1910)
- November 11 – Hugh Paddick, British actor (b. 1915)
- November 22 – Sir Cyril Astley Clarke, British physician, geneticist and entomologist, former President of the Royal College of Physicians (b. 1907)
- November 22 – Christian Marquand, French actor and director (b. 1927)
[edit] December
- December 2 – Gail Fisher, American actress (b. 1935)
- December 3 – Gwendolyn Brooks, African American writer (b. 1917)
- December 10 – Paul Avery, American journalist (b. 1934)
- December 10 – Marie Windsor, American actress (b. 1919)
- December 12 – Gangodawila Soma Thero, Sri Lankan Buddhist Monk (b. 1948)
- December 19 – Roebuck "Pops" Staples, patriarch of The Staple Singers (b. 1914)
- December 23 – Billy Barty, American actor (b. 1924)
- December 23 – Victor Borge, Danish-born comedian and pianist (b. 1909)
- December 26 – Jason Robards, American actor (b. 1922)
- December 30 – Julius J. Epstein, American screenwriter (b. 1909)
[edit] Nobel Prizes
The Nobel Peace Prize medal.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
