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 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.
February 22 – A Spanish-facilitated ceasefire begins in Sri Lanka.
March 1 – The Envisat environmental satellite successfully reaches an orbit 800 km above the Earth.
April 25 – South African Mark Shuttleworth blasts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on his £15 million trip to the International Space Station.
June 3 – The Party in the Palace takes place at Buckingham Palace, London for Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee celebrations.
June 6 – An object with an estimated diameter of 10 meters collided with Earth. The collision occurred over the Mediterranean Sea, between Greece and Libya, at approximately 34°N 21°E and the object exploded in mid-air. The energy released was estimated (from infrasound measurements) to be equivalent to 26 kilotons of TNT, comparable to a small nuclear weapon.
June 10 – The first direct electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of 2 humans, is carried out by Kevin Warwick in the United Kingdom.
June 11 – Antonio Meucci is recognized as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress.
October 2 – 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.
November 21 – At the NATO Summit in Prague, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia are invited to join the organization.
2002 (7 Metal Year / 4 Tree 9-Year Cycle / 9 Fire 81-Year Cycle)
[luxury, gluttony]