2000

**2000** was a leap year starting on Saturday, the 1st year of the 3rd millennium, the 1st year of the 21st century, and the 1st year of the 2000s decade.

There is a mistaken belief that 2000 is considered the last year of the 20th century and 2nd millennium, however it is incorrect because the incarnation of Jesus Christ was set in 1 BC (not AD 1), the year 2000 marks the 2001st year since the arrival of Christ according to Dionysius Exiguus.

The year 2000 is marked as:

* The International Year for a Culture of Peace.
* The World Mathematical Year.

## Events

### January

* January 1 - People accross the globe were celebrating, Y2K passes without being serious.
	+ In addition, it was the first day of the 3rd millennium, 21st century, and the 2000s decade.
* January 1 – The piece Longplayer begins. It lasts 1,000 years, finishing on Tuesday December 31, 2999.
* January 3–10 – Israel and Syria hold inconclusive peace talks.
* January 5–8 – The 2000 al-Qaeda Summit of several high-level al-Qaeda members (including 2 9/11 American Airlines hijackers) is held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
* January 6 – The last natural Pyrenean ibex is found dead, apparently killed by a falling tree.
* January 10 – America Online announces an agreement to purchase Time Warner for $162 billion (the largest-ever corporate merger).
* January 11 – The armed wing of the Islamic Salvation Front concludes its negotiations with the government for an amnesty and disbands in Algeria (see Algerian Civil War#GIA destroyed, GSPC discontinues).
* January 14
	+ A United Nations tribunal sentences 5 Bosnian Croats to up to 25 years in prison for the 1993 killing of over 100 Bosnian Muslims in a Bosnian village.
	+ The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at 11,722.98 (at the peak of the Dot-com bubble).
* January 18 – The Tagish Lake meteorite impacts the Earth.
* January 24 – God's Army, a Karen militia group led by twins Johnny and Luther Htoo, takes 700 hostages at a Thai hospital near the Burmese border.
* January 30 – Kenya Airways Flight 431 crashes off the coast of Ivory Coast into the Atlantic Ocean, killing 169.
* January 31
	+ Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crashes off the California coast into the Pacific Ocean, killing 88.
	+ Dr. Harold Shipman is found guilty of murdering 15 patients between 1998 at Hyde, Greater Manchester, and sentenced to life imprisonment.

### February

* February 4 – German extortionist Klaus-Peter Sabotta is jailed for life for attempted murder and extortion, in connection with the sabotage of German railway lines.
* February 6 – Tarja Halonen is elected the first female president of Finland.
* February 7 – Stipe Mesić is elected president of Croatia.
* February 8 – Radio broadcaster Bob Collins' plane collides with that of a student pilot over Zion, Illinois.
* February 9 – Torrential rains in Africa lead to the worst flooding in Mozambique in 50 years, which lasts until March and kills 800 people.
* February 13 – The final original *Peanuts* comic strip is published, following the death of its creator, Charles M. Schulz.
* February 21 – UNESCO holds the inaugural celebration of International Mother Language Day.
* February 29 – a rare century leap year date occurs. Usually, 00 years are not leap years due to not being exactly divisible by 400. 2000 is the first such year to have a February 29 since the year 1600, making it only the second such occasion since the Lilian rule was introduced in the late 16th century. The next such leap year will not occur until 2400.

### March

* March 1
	+ The Constitution of Finland is rewritten.
	+ Jorge Batlle, a son, grandnephew and great-grandson of former presidents, is sworn in as President of Uruguay.
* March 4 – The PlayStation 2 is released in Japan. Several months later, it becomes the best-selling game console of all time.
* March 8 – Tokyo train disaster: A sideswipe collision of 2 Tokyo Metro trains kills 5 people.
* March 10 – The NASDAQ Composite Index reaches an all-time high of 5,048. Two weeks later, the NASDAQ-100, S&P 500, and Wilshire 5000 reach their peaks prior to the Dot-com bubble, ending a bull market run that lasted over 17 years.
* March 12
	+ Pope John Paul II apologizes for the wrongdoings by members of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the ages.
	+ A Zenit-3SL launch fails due to a software bug.
* March 13 – The United States dollar becomes the official currency of Ecuador, replacing the Ecuadorian sucre.
* March 21
	+ Pope John Paul II begins the first official visit by a Roman Catholic pontiff to Israel.
	+ The U.S. Supreme Court rules the FDA lacks authority to regulate tobacco as an addictive drug, throwing out the Clinton Administration's main anti-smoking initiative.
* March 26
	+ Vladimir Putin is elected President of Russia.
	+ The Seattle Kingdome is demolished by implosion.
* March 27 – The Phillips explosion of 2000 kills 1 and injures 71 in Pasadena, Texas.
* March 28 – A tornado hits Fort Worth, Texas, damaging the downtown area.

### April

* April 1 – The 2000 United States Census begins. 281,421,906 residents are living in the United States.
* April 3 – *United States v. Microsoft Corp.*: Microsoft is ruled to have violated United States antitrust laws by keeping "an oppressive thumb" on its competitors.
* April 16 – An American anti-globalization protest is held in Washington, D.C.
* April 17 – Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin becomes Raja of Perlis.
* April 22 – In a predawn raid, federal agents seize 6-year-old Elián González from his relatives' home in Miami and fly him to his Cuban father in Washington, D.C., ending one of the most publicized custody battles in U.S. history.
* April 30 – Canonization of Faustina Kowalska in the presence of 200,000 people and the first Divine Mercy Sunday celebrated worldwide.

### May

* May – Sierra Leone Civil War: The British Armed Forces launch Operation Palliser to support the Sierra Leone government to counter the Revolutionary United Front.
* May 1 – A new class of composite material is fabricated, which has a combination of physical properties never before seen in a natural or man-made material.
* May 3 – In San Antonio, Texas, computer pioneer Datapoint files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
* May 4
	+ After originating in the Philippines, the ILOVEYOU computer virus spreads quickly throughout the world.
	+ An earthquake hits Banggai, Indonesia, leaving 54 dead.
* May 5 – A rare conjunction of 7 celestial bodies (Sun, Moon, planets Mercury–Saturn) occurs during the new moon.
* May 11
	+ The billionth living person in India is born.
	+ Effective date of Canada's first modern-day treaty – The Nisga'a Final Agreement.
* May 12 – The Tate Modern Gallery opens in London.
* May 13
	+ A fireworks factory disaster in Enschede, Netherlands, kills 23.
	+ Millennium Force opens at Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio as the world's tallest and fastest roller coaster.
* May 16 – The Grand National Assembly of Turkey elects Ahmet Necdet Sezer as the tenth President of Turkey.
* May 17 – A bomb in Glorietta Mall in Makati City, Philippines injures 13.
* May 20 – Taiwanese (ROC) president Chen Shui-bian makes the Four Noes and One Without pledge to Taiwan.
* May 25 – Israel withdraws IDF forces from southern Lebanon after 22 years.

### June

* June 4 – The 7.9 Mw Enggano earthquake shakes southwestern Sumatra with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VI (*Strong*). One-hundred and three people were killed and 2,174–2,585 were injured.
* 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 the 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. It is announced at the White House by President Clinton.
* June 28 – Elián González returns to Cuba with his father, Juan Miguel González, 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

* July 1 – The Øresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden is officially opened tor traffic.
* July 2
	+ France defeats Italy 2-1 after extra time in the final of the European Championships, becoming the first team to win the World Cup and European Championships consecutively.
	+ 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 7 – The draft assembly of Human Genome Project announced at the White House by President Bill Clinton, Francis Collins, and Craig Venter.
* July 10
	+ In southern Nigeria, a leaking petroleum pipeline explodes, killing about 250 villagers who were scavenging gasoline.
	+ Bashar al-Assad is confirmed as Syria's leader in a national referendum following the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad.
* July 13–25 – Israel's prime minister Ehud Barak and PLO leader 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 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 nominates Governor of Texas George W. Bush for President of the United States and Dick Cheney for Vice President.

### August

* August 3 – Rioting erupts on the Paulsgrove estate in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, after more than 100 people besiege the home of a block of flats allegedly housing a convicted paedophile. This is the latest vigilante violence against suspected sex offenders since the beginning of the "naming and shaming" anti-paedophile campaign by the tabloid newspaper *News of the World*.
* August 7 – DeviantART is launched.
* August 8 – The Confederate submarine *H. L. Hunley* is raised to the surface after 136 years on the ocean floor.
* August 12 – The Russian submarine *Kursk* sinks in the Barents Sea during one of the largest Russian naval exercises since the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, resulting in the deaths of all 118 men on board.
* August 14
	+ Tsar Nicholas II and his family are canonized by the synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.
	+ *Dora the Explorer*, one of Nickelodeon's most popular shows, debuts.
* August 14–17 – The Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles nominates U.S. Vice President Al Gore for President and Senator Joe Lieberman for Vice President.
* August 23 – John Anthony Kaiser, a Roman Catholic priest, is murdered in Morendat, Kenya.
* August 24 – The Nintendo GameCube is revealed.

### September

 File:2000 Summer Olympics logo.svg
* September 5 – Tuvalu joins the United Nations.
* September 6 – The last wholly Swedish-owned arms manufacturer, Bofors, is sold to American arms manufacturer United Defense.
* September 6–8 – World leaders attend the Millennium Summit at U.N. Headquarters.
* September 7–14 – The UK fuel protests take place, with refineries blockaded, and supply to the country's network of petrol stations halted.
* September 8
	+ Albania officially joins the World Trade Organization.
	+ The United Nations Millennium Declaration is made in New York.
* September 13 – Steve Jobs introduces the public beta of Mac OS X for US$29.95.
* September 15 – October 1 – The 2000 Summer Olympics are held in Sydney, Australia is the last Olympic Games of the 20th century.
* September 16
	+ Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze is last seen alive; this day is taken as the commemoration date of his death.
	+ Peru's president Alberto Fujimori calls for new elections in which he will not run.
* September 26
	+ The Greek ferry *Express Samina* sinks off the coast of the island of Paros; 80 out of a total of over 500 passengers perish in one of Greece's worst sea disasters.
	+ Anti-globalization protests in Prague (some 15,000 protesters) turn violent during the IMF and World Bank summits.
* September 28 – Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visits the Temple Mount, protected by a several-hundred-strong Israeli police force. Palestinian riots erupt, leading to a full-fledged armed uprising (called the Al-Aqsa Intifada by sympathizers and the Oslo War by opponents).
* September 29 – The HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland is closed.

### October

* October 5 – President Slobodan Milošević leaves office after widespread demonstrations throughout Serbia.
* October 6 – The last Mini is produced in Longbridge.
* October 11
	+ Jim Wallace becomes Acting First Minister of Scotland.
	+ Template:Convert of coal sludge spill in Martin County, Kentucky (considered a greater environmental disaster than the Exxon Valdez oil spill).
* October 12 – In Aden, Yemen, 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 Shimbun* 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 modern-day fake on April 17, 2001.
* October 27
	+ Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).
	+ Henry McLeish becomes First Minister of Scotland.
* 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.

### November

* November – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq rejects new U.N. Security Council weapons inspections proposals.
* November 1 - Serbia is admitted to the United Nations as the 190th member.
* 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
	+ In London, a criminal gang raids the Millennium Dome to steal the Millennium Star diamond, but police surveillance catches them in the act.
	+ Hillary Clinton is elected to the United States Senate, becoming the first First Lady of the United States to win public office.
	+ United States presidential election, 2000: Republican Governor of Texas George W. Bush defeats Democratic Vice President Al Gore in the U.S. presidential election but there is a miscount in Florida resulting in a recount of the votes.
* 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 since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
* 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.
	+ 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 of Canada increases its majority in the House of Commons of Canada.
* November 28 – Ukrainian politician Oleksandr Moroz touches off the Cassette Scandal by publicly accusing President Leonid Kuchma of involvement in the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze. The accusation creates the Orange Revolution in 2004.

### December

* December 1 – Vicente Fox takes office as President of Mexico.
* December 7 – Kadisoka temple discovered in Sleman, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
* December 12 – *Bush v. Gore*: The U.S. Supreme Court stops the Florida presidential recount, effectively giving the state, and the Presidency, to George W. Bush.
* December 15
	+ Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel opens at the Disneyland Resort.
	+ The third and final reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is shut down and the station is shut down completely.
* December 24 – Christmas Eve 2000 Indonesia bombings: At least 18 people are killed in multiple Islamist bomb attacks on churches across Indonesia.
* December 25 – The Luoyang Christmas fire at a shopping center in China kills 309 people.
* December 30 – Rizal Day bombings: A series of bombs explode in various places in Metro Manila, Philippines, within a span of a few hours, killing 22 and injuring about 100.

### World population

1. ↑ CNN.com – World – War crimes tribunal hands Croat general lengthy sentence – March 3, 2000. Retrieved 19 November 2007.
2. ↑ Fifth Anniversary: Nasdaq's record all-time closing high 5,048.62. Retrieved 19 November 2007.
3. ↑ Template:Cite web
4. ↑ Template:Cite journal
5. ↑ Template:Cite web
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7. ↑ Template:Cite web
8. ↑ Template:Cite web
9. ↑ Template:Cite web
10. ↑ World Population Prospects Template:Webarchive. Retrieved 19 November 2007.