August 2002
August 2002 :
January -
February -
March -
April -
May -
June -
July -
August -
September -
October -
November -
DecemberSee also:*
Afghanistan timeline August 2002*
Israeli-Palestinian conflict: A Palestinian
suicide bombing claims 9 lives, near
Safed; there is a shooting attack in
Jerusalem, claiming 2; there is an attack upon a settler family, killing the parents. Not all of the victims of these attacks were Israeli Jews; some were Israeli Arabs and
Druze.
*
Recent celebrity deaths: Chick Hearn, pro-
basketball announcer dies at the age of 85.
*
Stock market downturn of 2002: U.S. indices continue heavy losses from the previous week and fall by over three percent on the day,
NASDAQ falling below its July 23 low.
*
British cases of
Legionnaires' disease continue to rise, to a total of 56 diagnosed cases so far, in that country's largest outbreak for many years.
*
Microsoft has announced that it is to make some concessions towards the proposed final settlement of the
United States v. Microsoft case, ahead of the judge's verdict.
* The gun turret of the
USS Monitor was raised from the sea bottom off the coast of
North Carolina, where it had lain since sinking in
1862.
*
Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Israeli forces kill 6 Palestinians: Israeli undercover soldiers kill four Palestinian militants wound three in a gun-fight in
Tulkarm. An Israeli sniper kills
Hussam Hamdan, a member of
Hamas in the
Gaza Strip. Israeli troops and 30 tanks push into northern Gaza, killing a Palestinian policeman. These come in response to the attacks of August 4 listed below.
* Three members of
Manchester rock band Oasis have been injured in a head-on
car crash in
Indianapolis while on tour in the U.S.A. None were seriously injured.
*
Mathematics: A group at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur have presented an
algorithm that they claim determines whether a
number is
prime in
polynomial time relative to the length of the input number in
bits. This is an important result in
computational complexity theory.
*
Stock market downturn of 2002: The
stock market remains volatile.
*Explosions went off near the parliament building as
Colombia's President
Álvaro Uribe was being sworn in, killing at least 10 people.
*
Recent celebrity deaths: Edsger Dijkstra, one of the giants of the field of
computer science, has died.
*
Accountancy scandals:
WorldCom announced it had discovered $3.3 billion in false accounting in addition to the $3.8 billion discovered earlier.
* The
F.C.C. votes to require
television manufacturers to include
digital tuners in nearly all televisions by 2007.
*
Extreme weather: Dozens are killed by
floods caused by torrential rains in Europe, including the
Malse and
Blanice rivers of the
Czech Republic, the
Black Sea resort village of
Shirokaya Balka near
Novorossiisk in
Russia, and
Romania. The downpours have also caused extensive damage in
Austria,
Bulgaria,
Croatia,
Italy, and
Spain.
* A massive explosion in
Jalalabad at the maintenance facility of the Afghan Construction and Logistics Unit, a private construction company, kills at least 10 and injures 25, damaging 50 homes and a
hydroelectric dam.
*
Charlton Heston,
movie actor and president of the
National Rifle Association, announces that he has
Alzheimer's disease*
UNEP (UN Environment Programme) reports on the
Asian brown cloud.
*
Recent celebrity deaths:
Enos Slaughter,
Baseball Hall of Famer, dies at 86 from the disease
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
*
Extreme weather: The death toll in Europe caused by
flooding has risen to at least 74, with 58 deaths in Russia, 3 in
Germany, 3 in
Austria, and one in the
Czech Republic. Prime Minister
Vladimir Spidla declared a state of emergency in
Prague,
Bohemia,
Plzen and
Karlovy Vary. All shipping on the
Danube has been halted. Premier
Silvio Berlusconi approved $50 million in emergency aid in response to the $300 million in damage of northern
Italy's crops.
*
US Airways declares
bankruptcy, caused by the air travel slowdown following the
September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack.
*
Colombian president
Álvaro Uribe declares state of emergency.
*
Extreme weather: On the seventh day of heavy rains, the peak of
100-year flood of the
Vltava River reaches
Prague, and the
Kampa district is submerged under several yards of water, as well as the
Prague Zoo, killing an
elephant, five
rhinoceros, a
lion, a
gorilla and 80 birds, and allowing five seals to escape. The
Kampa Museum is flooded. 15,000 people were evacuated from
Mělník, and 1,600 people were evacuated from
Děčín. The death toll in Europe is at 88, 9 in the Czech Republic.
*
Vladimir Putin announces that
Belarus will be fully integrated into
Russia, with each of Belarus's six provinces to become a separate
republic within the Russian
Federation.
*
Recent celebrity deaths:
Larry Rivers,
American painter, dies at 78.
*
Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
Marwan Barghouti, captured
April 15, is indicted in a civilian Israeli court.
* The
United States Food and Drug Administration orders a recall of all soft tissues processed since October 3 by
CryoLife, the largest supplier of
implant tissue in the United States, after 27 cases of serious infection, including one death in November.
*
Extreme weather: The peak of a
100-year flood of the
Vltava River surges through the
Czech Republic into the
Elbe in
Germany. In
Plzen the city center is flooded, and breweries shut down. In
Ceske Budejovice, most of the old town is under more than a foot of water, and the Czech
Budweiser breweries are shut down. More than 200,000 Czechs are forced to leave their homes. Damages are estimated at over $600 million. In
Dresden, the
Zwinger Palace courtyard and basement are flooded, damaging paintings. The
Semper Opera basement is flooded, closing it for weeks. More than 3,000 hospital patients are evacuated. Europe-wide death toll is now 99.
* Thousands of fans gather at
Graceland in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the death of
Elvis.
*
Extreme weather: The
Elbe crests at
Dresden at the record height of 30.84 feet. 30,000 Germans are evacuated along the river's path.
*
Extreme weather: One of the
sea lions who escaped from the
Prague Zoo on the 13th is safely recaptured near
Wittenberg.
*
Martin Strel is approaching
Memphis, Tennessee in his effort for
peace to swim the length of the
Mississippi River.
*
Recent celebrity deaths:
Al Ayyam reports that international
terrorist Abu Nidal was found dead of apparent suicide.
*
Extreme weather: The
flooding death toll in Europe reaches 109. The
Danube peaks at
Budapest at a record 28.3 feet, mostly contained by the walls along the river.
Dessau is flooded. Overall damage in the Czech Republic is expected to cost $2.8 billion.
*
Extreme weather: In
India, a 125-year-old dam bursts under torrential rains, killing 10.
*
Extreme weather: In
China, the
Dongting Lake floods
Yueyang, forcing the evacuation of 600,000 people; the crest of the flooding from the
Yangtze River is expected Sunday. Floods and landslides have killed nearly 1000 people in China, 200 in the
Hunan province. There have been 376 deaths in
India, 494 in
Nepal, and 158 deaths in
Bangladesh this
monsoon season.
*
Government of Canada:
Jean Chrétien, the
Prime Minister of Canada, announces he will step down in
February 2004.
*
Recent celebrity deaths:
Baseball Hall of Fame player
Hoyt Wilhelm dies.
*
Recent celebrity deaths:
Lionel Hampton,
jazz vibraphone master, dies.
*
Israeli-Palestinian conflict: A think tank affiliated with the
Arab League ended its meeting in
Cairo by calling
Jews "enemies of all nations", by claiming that Arabs, as Semites, cannot be
anti-Semitic, and by claiming that the events of
September 11, 2001 were concocted by the
United States government. See
http://www.zccf.org.ae/LECTURES/E2_lectures/e255.htm
