AOL Time Warner brings a federal suit against Microsoft seeking damages. The suit alleges that the market for AOL's Netscape Navigator Internet browser was harmed when Microsoft started to give away a competing browser.
28 people die in continuing violence in Ahmedabad. Police shoot and kill five while attempting to control rioters.
The Envisatenvironmental satellite successfully reaches an orbit 800km above the Earth on its 11th launch, carrying the heaviest payload to date at 8500kg.
The 38-day stand-off in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem comes to an end when the Palestinians inside agreed to have 13 suspected militants among them deported to several different countries. The standoff started April 2.
In Kaspiysk, Russia, a remote-control bomb explodes during a holiday parade, killing 43 and injuring at least 130.
May 10 - FBI agent Robert Hanssen is sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for selling American secrets to Moscow for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds.
July 13 - A lighting strike sets off the Sour Biscuit Fire in Oregon and northern California, which is left to burn 499,570 acres (2,022 km²) when finally contained on September 5.
July 15 - So-called "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh pleads guilty to supplying aid to the enemy and for the possession of explosives during the commission of a felony. Lindh agrees to serve 10 years in prison for each of the charges
July 27 - A Sukhoi Su-27 fighter crashes at an air show in Ukraine killing 78 and injuring more than 100 others, the largest air show disaster in history.
August 19 - Iraq disarmament crisis: The U.N. Secretary General rejects Iraq's August 2 proposal as the "wrong work program", and instead recommends that Iraq allow weapons inspectors to return to the country, in accordance with previous U.N. resolutions.
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.
December 7 - Iraq disarmament crisis: As required by the recently passed U.N. resolution, Iraq files a 12,000 page weapons declaration with the U.N. Security Council. Although it is supposed to be a complete declaration, it is seen as incomplete by the Security Council and weapons inspectors.
Peace:Jimmy Carter, 39th US president "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development."
Literature:Imre Kertész, Hungarian writer "for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history".
Chemistry:
John B. Fenn (Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, USA) and Koichi Tanaka (Shimadzu Corp. , Kyoto, Japan) "for their development of soft desorption ionisation methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules"
Raymond Davis Jr. (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA) and Masatoshi Koshiba (International Center for Elementary Particle Physics, University of Tokyo, Japan) "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos"
Riccardo Giacconi (Associated Universities Inc., Washington DC, USA) "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources"