2002 in the United States

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See also:	History of the United States (1991–2016) ; Timeline of the history of the United States (1990-2009) ; List of years in the United States ;

Last updated August 22, 2025

Incumbents

Federal government

Governors and lieutenant governors
Governors Governor of Alabama: Don Siegelman (Democratic) Governor of Alaska: Tony Knowles (Democratic) (until December 2), Frank Murkowski (Republican) (starting December 2) Governor of Arizona: Jane Dee Hull (Republican) Governor of Arkansas: Mike Huckabee (Republican) Governor of California: Gray Davis (Democratic) Governor of Colorado: Bill Owens (Republican) Governor of Connecticut: John G. Rowland (Republican) Governor of Delaware: Ruth Ann Minner (Democratic) Governor of Florida: Jeb Bush (Republican) Governor of Georgia: Roy Barnes (Democratic) Governor of Hawaii: Ben Cayetano (Democratic) (until December 2), Linda Lingle (Republican) (starting December 2) Governor of Idaho: Dirk Kempthorne (Republican) Governor of Illinois: George Ryan (Republican) Governor of Indiana: Frank O'Bannon (Democratic) Governor of Iowa: Tom Vilsack (Democratic) Governor of Kansas: Bill Graves (Republican) Governor of Kentucky: Paul E. Patton (Democratic) Governor of Louisiana: Murphy J. Foster, Jr. (Republican) Governor of Maine: Angus King (Independent) Governor of Maryland: Parris N. Glendening (Democratic) Governor of Massachusetts: Jane Swift (Republican) Governor of Michigan: John Engler (Republican) Governor of Minnesota: Jesse Ventura (Independence) Governor of Mississippi: Ronnie Musgrove (Democratic) Governor of Missouri: Bob Holden (Democratic) Governor of Montana: Judy Martz (Republican) Governor of Nebraska: Mike Johanns (Republican) Governor of Nevada: Kenny Guinn (Republican) Governor of New Hampshire: Jeanne Shaheen (Democratic) Governor of New Jersey: until January 8: Donald DiFrancesco (Republican) January 8: John Farmer, Jr. (Republican) January 8-January 12: John O. Bennett (Republican) January 12-January 15: Richard Codey (Democratic) starting January 15: Jim McGreevey (Democratic) Governor of New Mexico: Gary Johnson (Republican) Governor of New York: George Pataki (Republican) Governor of North Carolina: Mike Easley (Democratic) Governor of North Dakota: John Hoeven (Republican) Governor of Ohio: Bob Taft (Republican) Governor of Oklahoma: Frank Keating (Republican) Governor of Oregon: John Kitzhaber (Democratic) Governor of Pennsylvania: Mark S. Schweiker (Republican) Governor of Rhode Island: Lincoln C. Almond (Republican) Governor of South Carolina: Jim Hodges (Democratic) Governor of South Dakota: William J. Janklow (Republican) Governor of Tennessee: Don Sundquist (Republican) Governor of Texas: Rick Perry (Republican) Governor of Utah: Mike Leavitt (Republican) Governor of Vermont: Howard Dean (Democratic) Governor of Virginia: Jim Gilmore (Republican) (until January 12), Mark Warner (Democratic) (starting January 12) Governor of Washington: Gary Locke (Democratic) Governor of West Virginia: Bob Wise (Democratic) Governor of Wisconsin: Scott McCallum (Republican) Governor of Wyoming: Jim Geringer (Republican) Lieutenant governors Lieutenant Governor of Alabama: Steve Windom (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Alaska: Fran Ulmer (Democratic) (until December 2), Loren Leman (Republican) (starting December 2) Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas: Winthrop Paul Rockefeller (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of California: Cruz Bustamante (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Colorado: Joe Rogers (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Jodi Rell (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Delaware: John Carney (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Florida: Frank Brogan (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Georgia: Mark Taylor (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii: until December 2: Mazie Hirono (Democratic) December 2-December 4: vacant starting December 4: Duke Aiona (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Idaho: Jack Riggs (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Corinne Wood (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Joe E. Kernan (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Iowa: Sally Pederson (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Kansas: Gary Sherrer (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: Steve Henry (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Kathleen Blanco (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Maryland: Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Jane Swift (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: Dick Posthumus (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota: Mae Schunk (Independence) Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: Amy Tuck (Democratic)/(Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Joe Maxwell (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Montana: Karl Ohs (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Nebraska: Dave Heineman (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Nevada: Lorraine Hunt (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of New Mexico: Walter Dwight Bradley (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of New York: Mary Donohue (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina: Bev Perdue (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota: Jack Dalrymple (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Ohio: Maureen O'Connor (Republican) (until December 31), vacant (starting December 31) Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma: Mary Fallin (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania: Robert Jubelirer (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Charles J. Fogarty (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Bob Peeler (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of South Dakota: Carole Hillard (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee: John S. Wilder (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Texas: Bill Ratliff (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Utah: Olene S. Walker (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Doug Racine (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: John H. Hager (Republican) (until January 12), Tim Kaine (Democratic) (starting January 12) Lieutenant Governor of Washington: Brad Owen (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: Margaret A. Farrow (Republican)

Events

January

January 8: President George W. Bush signs the No Child Left Behind Act into law

January 5 – Charles Bishop, a 15-year-old student pilot, crashes a light aircraft into a building in Tampa, Florida, evoking fear of a copycat 9/11 terrorist attack.
January 6 – The Boston Globe publishes a story detailing the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston sex abuse scandal.
January 8 – The No Child Left Behind Act is signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush.
January 9 – The United States Department of Justice announces it will pursue a criminal investigation of Enron.
January 11 – The first detainees arrive at Camp X-Ray (Guantanamo).
January 13 – President Bush chokes on a pretzel and faints briefly.^[2]
January 14 – The asylum case of Adelaide Abankwah is heard in New York.
January 16
- The United Nations Security Council unanimously establishes an arms embargo and the freezing of assets of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and the remaining members of the Taliban.
- A student shoots six at the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia, killing 3.
January 18 – A Canadian Pacific Railway train carrying anhydrous ammonia derails outside of Minot, North Dakota, killing one.
January 21 – Cyberchase premieres on PBS Kids.
January 23 – The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Pakistan, accused of being a CIA agent by his captors.
January 29 – In his State of the Union Address, President Bush describes North Korea, Iran and Iraq as an "axis of evil".^[3]
January 31 – U.S. special forces are deployed in the Philippines in Operation Enduring Freedom – Philippines, part of the War on Terror.^[3]

February

February 1 – Kidnapped reporter Daniel Pearl of The Wall Street Journal is murdered in Karachi, Pakistan.
February 3 – Super Bowl XXXVI: The New England Patriots beat the St. Louis Rams 20–17 at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans to win their first Super Bowl title.
February 8 – 24 – The Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City, Utah. The United States wins 10 gold, 13 silver and 11 bronze medals.
February 12 – The U.S. Secretary of Energy makes the decision that Yucca Mountain is suitable to be the United States' nuclear repository.
February 13 – Queen Elizabeth II gives former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani an honorary knighthood.
February 19 – NASA's Mars Odyssey space probe begins to map the surface of Mars using its thermal emission imaging system.

March

March 1
- STS-109: Space Shuttle Columbia flies the Hubble Space Telescope service mission, its last before the disastrous STS-107.
- U.S. invasion of Afghanistan: In eastern Afghanistan, Operation Anaconda begins.
March 12 – In Houston, Texas, Andrea Yates is found guilty of drowning her five children on June 20, 2001. She is later sentenced to life in prison.
March 14 – 125 vehicles are involved in a massive pile up on Interstate 75 in Ringgold, Georgia.
March 15 – Ice Age is released in theaters.
March 19 – US war in Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda ends (started on March 1) after killing 500 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, with 11 allied troop fatalities.
March 21 – In Pakistan, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and three others are charged with the kidnapping and killing of The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
March 24 – The 74th Academy Awards, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, are held at Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, with Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind winning four awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. The film ties with Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in award wins, while the latter leads the nominations with 13. The telecast garners over 41.8 million viewers.
March – Layalina Productions, Inc. non-profit public diplomacy initiative is inaugurated.^[4]

April

April 1 – Maryland defeats Indiana 64–52 to win the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia.
April 17 – Four Canadian infantrymen are killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire from two US F-16s.
April 19 – The Senate defeats President Bush's plan to authorize oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.^[3]
April 27 – The Laughlin, Nevada River Run Riot kills three.

May

May 1 – Nicktoons TV (renamed Nicktoons in 2003, then in 2009) launches in the United States.
May 3 – Spider-Man is released in theaters as the first film in the Spider-Man trilogy.
May 10 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for selling American secrets to Moscow for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds.
May 12 – Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro, becoming the first U.S. president, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro's 1959 revolution.
May 16 – Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones is released in theaters.
May 21 – The State Department releases a report naming seven state sponsors of terrorism: Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.
May 22
- 16th Street Baptist Church bombing: A jury in Birmingham, Alabama convicts Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of the 1963 murders of four girls.
- Police in Washington, D.C. announce that the skeletal remains of Federal Bureau of Prisons intern Chandra Levy, who has been missing for a year, have been found in Rock Creek Park.
May 26 – I-40 bridge disaster: A barge collides with the Interstate 40 bridge across the Arkansas River in eastern Oklahoma, killing 14.

June

June 5 – 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart is kidnapped from her bedroom in Salt Lake City, Utah. She is rescued nine months later.
June 11
- The first episode of American Idol airs.
- Antonio Meucci is recognized as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress.
June 12 – The Los Angeles Lakers sweep the New Jersey Nets in the 2002 NBA Finals to win their third consecutive NBA championship.
June 14 – In Karachi, Pakistan, a car bomb in front of the U.S. Consulate kills 12 Pakistanis and injures 50.
June 21 – Walt Disney Pictures' 42nd feature film, Lilo & Stitch , is released to positive reviews and box-office success.
June 29 – Vice President Dick Cheney serves as acting president for a few hours while President George W. Bush undergoes a colonoscopy procedure under sedation.

July

July 4 – 2002 Los Angeles International Airport shooting: Egyptian immigrant Hesham Mohamed Hadayet kills two and injures six before being killed by a security officer. The incident is called an act of terrorism.
July 13 – A lightning strike sets off the Sour Biscuit Fire in Oregon and northern California, which burns 499,570 acres (2,022 km²).
July 15 – In Washington, D.C., "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh pleads guilty to aiding the enemy and possession of explosives during the commission of a felony; Lindh agrees to serve 10 years in prison for each charge.
July 20 – The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius debuts on Nickelodeon.
July 21 – Telecommunications giant WorldCom files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the largest such filing in United States history.
July 24 – Congressman James Traficant of Ohio is expelled from the House of Representatives by a vote of 420–1 following his ten felony convictions.

August

August 12 – In Arlington, Virginia, US Airways declares bankruptcy.

September

September 2 – Liberty's Kids premieres on PBS Kids.
September 4 – Kelly Clarkson wins the first American Idol competition.
September 5 – The Sour Biscuit Fire in Oregon and northern California, which burned 499,570 acres (2,022 km²), is contained.
September 7 – The Fox Network's Fox Kids block (which had been on the air since 1990) airs for the final time. It was replaced the following week (on September 14) by the 4Kids-programmed FoxBox.^[5]
September 11 – Thousands of people in New York City and across the nation attend ceremonies as the United States commemorates the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
September 12 – Iraq disarmament crisis: U.S. President George W. Bush addresses the U.N., and challenges its members to confront the "grave and gathering danger" of Iraq, or stand aside as the United States and likeminded nations act.^[3]
September 14 – Major upheavals take place on Saturday mornings, as the four major networks change their programming on this day. Fox, having sold Fox Kids Worldwide to The Walt Disney Company the previous year, ends Fox Kids and sells its airtime to 4Kids Entertainment, who begin programming a new children's programming block as the Fox Box. Disney, meanwhile, having acquired the Fox Kids brand, ends Disney's One Saturday Morning on ABC and renamed ABC Kids. CBS, whose then-corporate sibling Nickelodeon programs its lineup, rebrands its Nick Jr. on CBS block as Nick on CBS and refocuses it on children 2–11 years old, while NBC signs a contract with Discovery Networks to air a programming strand called Discovery Kids on NBC (a spinoff of a former digital cable channel Discovery Kids), which replaces the teen-oriented block TNBC.^[5]^[6]

October

October 2
- The Beltway sniper attacks begin with five shootings taking place in Montgomery County, Maryland.
- The Congress of the United States passes a joint resolution, which authorizes the President to use the United States Armed Forces as he deems necessary and appropriate, against Iraq.
October 9 – The Dot-com bubble bear market reaches bottom, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average slips below 7,200.
October 9 – 10 – Congress passes the Iraq Resolution authorizing the Iraq War.^[3]
October 16 – The Iraq War Resolution is authorized by a majority of the U.S. Congress.
October 24 – The Beltway sniper attacks end with the arrest of John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo. The pair killed 10 people and wounded three others in the Baltimore–Washington Metropolitan Area in this series of attacks; they had killed seven other people in prior attacks.
October 25 – U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone, his family, and his staff are killed in a plane accident at Eveleth, Minnesota.
October 27 – The Anaheim Angels defeat the San Francisco Giants in Game 7 of the 2002 World Series to win their first World Series title.

November

November 2 – The Godless Americans March on Washington brings together 2,000 atheists, freethinkers, agnostics, and humanists in a mile-long parade down the National Mall.
November 3 – The 7.9 M_w  Denali earthquake shakes the Alaska Interior with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), causing one injury and $20–56 million in losses.
November 5 – Republicans gain a majority in the Senate and a larger majority in the House of Representatives following congressional elections.^[3]
November 6 – The U.S. Federal Reserve System drops its primary discount rate by 25 basis points to 0.75%, putting the real interest rate solidly below the inflation rate.
November 7 – Iran bans the advertising of United States products.
November 8 – The United Nations passes Resolution 1441 giving Iraqi President Saddam Hussein a final opportunity to cooperate with international weapons inspectors.^[3]
November 12 – Toxicologist Kristin Rossum is convicted of the 2000 murder of her husband Gregory de Viller in San Diego. Rossum had poisoned her victim using fentanyl, passing off the crime as a suicide.^[7]
November 16 – A Campaign against Climate Change march takes place in London from Lincoln's Inn Fields, past Esso offices to the United States Embassy.
November 25 – U.S. President George W. Bush signs the Homeland Security Act into law, establishing the Department of Homeland Security. It was the largest U.S. government reorganization since the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947.
November 27 – Walt Disney Pictures' 43rd feature film, Treasure Planet , is released to positive reception, but turns outs to be a rare box office bomb from the studio.

December

December 9 – United Airlines, the second largest airline in the world, files for bankruptcy.^[8]
December 13 – President George W. Bush announces a smallpox vaccination program for military personnel, as well as for civilian healthcare and emergency workers to protect against bioterrorism risks. He announces that the public will not be called up for shots until 2004 at the earliest.^[9]
December 21 – President Bush receives his smallpox vaccine.^[10]

Ongoing

Iraqi no-fly zones (1991–2003)^[11]
War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)