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Jan 11 President-elect Bush has a top-secret session with the U.S. military Joint Chiefs of Staff, reviewing spots around world where he might have to send U.S. forces. The focus is on Iraq and the Persian Gulf. Bush has been critical of the Clinton administration for allowing the international coalition against Iraq to erode and the sanctions against Iraq to loosen.

Jan 17 President Clinton's National Security Advisor meets with Bush's appointed National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice. An attack by terrorists within the United States is Berger's over-riding concern, and he tells Rice: "I believe that the Bush Administration will spend more time on terrorism generally, and on al-Qaeda specifically, than any other subject."

Jan 20 President Clinton pardons 111 people, including Susan McDougal, Patricia Hearst Shaw, and his half-brother Roger Clinton. George W. Bush is sworn in as President of the United States.

Jan 25 Richard Clarke, member of the National Security Council, who had served three previous presidents, sends a memo to Rice suggesting a major presidential policy review to address the "challenge" to the U.S. posed by the al Qaeda network.

Jan 28 A defector from Saddam Hussein's Iraq tell the British newspaper, The Telegraph, that Hussein has two fully operational nuclear bombs and is working on others.

Jan 30 Bush administration holds its first National Security Council meeting. Iraq gets attention and al Qaeda does not, or hardly any. At the meeting, CIA director George Tenet states that a factory in Iraq “might” be producing “either chemical or biological materials for weapons manufacture.” He admits that there is “no confirming intelligence.”

Feb 12 The Human Genome Project international consortium announces the publication of an analysis of the human genome: a blueprint of the sequence of the three billion chemical letters embodied in genetic heredity.

Feb 15 Former senators Hart and Rudman issue their final report on national security. It warns that the U.S. is unprepared for a "catastrophic'' domestic terrorist attack.

Feb 15 President Bush tells the West Virginia National Guard that "over-deployments" strain troops, their families the civilian employers of National Guardsmen.

Feb 16 Responding to Iraqi targeting of allied warplanes flying in the UN created "no fly zones," twenty-four U.S. and British aircraft attack Iraqi radar stations and air command centers, including targets around Baghdad.

Feb 17 President Bush says that "Saddam Hussein has got to understand that we expect him to conform to the agreement that he signed after Desert Storm [1991].''

Feb 18 FBI agent Robert Hannsen is arrested and charged with having spied for Russia for the past fifteen years.

Mar 1 Mohamed Atta, and a friend, Marwan al-Shehhi, are in Florida practicing flying with a small Piper Warrior aircraft. Atta is thirty-three, an Egyptian and former student of architecture in Hamburg, Germany. He is passionately opposed to Israel and U.S. support for Israel. He believes that Jews centered in New York City control the finances and media of the world and that "Saddam Hussein is an American stooge set up to give Washington an excuse to intervene in the Middle East."

Mar 4 At an international conference in Trieste, Christine Todd Whitman, representing President Bush, declares that the U.S. is committed to combating global warming and to pursuing mandatory emission controls.

Mar 29 President Bush has changed his mind about the mandatory emission controls that he spoke for during his campaign for the presidency. He announces that he will not give in to international pressure regarding his decision to shun the Kyoto Treaty on global warming. He says he "will not accept a plan that will harm our economy and hurt our workers."

Apr 1 A new law in the Netherlands legalizes same-sex marriages for the first time since the reign of Nero.

Apr 2 A U.S. spy aircraft has collided with a Chinese fighter jet and is forced to land in Hainan, China. The U.S. crew is detained and the plane is confiscated. China blames the United States and the U.S. blames China. President Bush insists on the return of the airplane's crew and the airplane, "without further damaging or tampering."

Apr 11 Regarding China, President Bush has toned down the belligerent rhetoric and allowed quiet go-it-alone diplomacy. China returns the crew of the plane that landed in Hainan. The spy plane is to be cut into pieces and flown out of China in a Russian cargo plane.

Apr 11 A few Islamic young men join Atta in Florida.

May 1 President Bush describes the possible possession of missiles by rogue states as “today’s most urgent threat.”

Jun 1 In Nepal, Crown Prince Dipendra, not quite 30, has been denied his choice for a wife by his mother. With an assault rifle he kills his mother, his father the king, other members of the royal family and he shoots himself.

Jun 4 Crown Prince Dipendra dies. His uncle, Gyanendra, 53, the closest relative to the former king, ascends the throne.

Jun 6 German intelligence warns the U.S. CIA and Israel that Middle Eastern terrorists are “planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture.

Jun 11 The United States executes Timothy McVeigh for his bombing a federal building in Oklahoma City.

Jun 16 Speaking of President Putin of Russia, President Bush says, "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy... I was able to get a sense of his soul."

Jun 20 In Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless military coup in 1999, declares himself President.

Jul 2 The first self-contained artificial heart is implanted in Robert Tools. He is to live 151 days.

Jul 10 FBI agent Kenneth Williams sends a memo from Arizona warning that men suspected of ties to terrorist groups are training in Arizona flight schools. He mentions Osama bin Laden by name and speculates that bin Laden's organization might be attempting to infiltrate the U.S. aviation industry with pilots, security guards, and maintenance workers.

Jul 16 China and Russia sign a Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation.

Jul 21 The Darfur Liberation Front is born as a some Fur and Zaghawa meet and swear oaths on the Koran to combat the Sudanese government in Khartoum.

Aug 6 President Bush receives an intelligence memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." The memo says that bin Laden may attempt to hijack airplanes. The report mentions the al Qaeda operative, Ahmed Ressam, who intended to bomb Los Angeles International Airport at the beginning of the year but was caught at the U.S.-Canadian border.

Aug 10 British and U.S. war planes attack air-defense sites in southern Iraq. The Pentagon says three Iraq air defense system targets are destroyed.

Sep 9 In Afghanistan, Ahmed Shah Massoud, military commander of the Northern Alliance, an enemy of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, is assassinated by a suicide bomber posing as a journalist.

Sep 11 In the U.S. nothing has been done to increase airport security. Hijackers have no trouble boarding commercial airlines. They turn the aircraft into missiles. Still without adequate radios, more than 200 firefighters in the north tower do not received an evacuation call. Almost 3000 are killed in New York City. At the Pentagon, 184 are killed.

Sep 11 Around noon New York time, the Taliban government in Afghanistan denounces the attacks. Around 6 PM, Iraq announces that the attacks are the fruit of "U.S. crimes against humanity." In the evening President Bush tells the American people that they have seen evil and that he will make no distinction between those responsible for the attacks and those who harbor them.

Sep 12 Regarding the attack on September 11, Bush tells Richard Clarke: "Go back over everything. Everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in anyway."

Sep 12 Crowds of Iranians hold candlelight marchs in sympathy with the victims of the attacks of September 11.

Sep 16 President Bush tells his Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice: " We won't do Iraq now, but it's a question we're gonna have to return to."

Sep 18 Iran's Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, says that Islam condemns the massacre of defenseless people. There is hope among Iranians that the U.S. will acquire a more favorable attitude toward the government of Iran.

Sep 18 Talk for the past few days of terrorists using biological agents is followed on this day by five letters containing anthrax sent from Trenton New Jersey to ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, the New York Post and the National Enquirer. By the year 2008 the FBI will conclude that the anthrax attacks are by someone at the heart of work with anthrax: Bruce Ivins, a mentally unstable civilian microbiologist hired by the U.S. Army.

Sep 21 President Bush has demanded that the Taliban deliver to the U.S. Osama bin Laden. The Taliban replies that it would turn over bin Laden only if presented with evidence of his guilt and that he should be tried by Muslim clerics

Sep 24 The Taliban calls for a jihad against America if U.S. forces enter Afghanistan.

Sep 25 Saudi Arabia breaks relations with the Taliban, citing the Taliban with having made "its land a center to attract and train a number of misguided people of all nations... in order to carry out criminal acts that are against every tenet of Shariah."

Sep 28 Zayd Hassan Safarini, who led the murders aboard Pan Am Flight 73 in 1986, has been released from prison by the Pakistanis. U.S. FBI agents grab him in Bangkok, Thailand, and will take him to the United States, where is to be convicted of murdering U.S. citizens and sentenced to 160 years in prison.

Oct 5 The first death occurs believed from the anthrax sent in letters postmarked September 18.

Oct 7 The United States and Britain begin bombing targets in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden calls on all Muslims to wage a holy war against the United States. Pro-Taliban and anti-U.S. demonstrations erupt in Pakistan.

Oct 9 Letters containing anthrax are sent again from Trenton New Jersey and are addressed to two Democratic senators: Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. These two are Roman Catholics. Bruce Ivins is also a Roman Catholic and will be described as opposed to abortion and perhaps hostile to the liberal positions on abortion by the two senators.

Oct 9 Pakistan troops fight the Taliban on the Pakistani-Afghan border.

Oct 10 In the U.S., attempts have been made to tighten airport security. Bush lets the public know that his administration now has a list of 22 terrorists that are most wanted. Government officials tell the public that bin Laden has a network that extends to the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Nov 1 The U.S. and British effort in Afghanistan has been mainly air strikes. The Pentagon announces that it is increasing the number of advisors working with anti-Taliban groups in Afghanistan.

Nov 10 China is admitted to the World Trade Organization.

Nov 14 The Afghani, anti-Taliban, Northern Alliance, has sent a force into Kabul.

Nov 14 Germany sends to prison four who participated in the April 5, 1986, Berlin discotheque bombing. Three are convicted of aiding in murder. These are a Libyan diplomat and two Palestinians. The former wife of one of the Palestinians, a German, is convicted of murder.

Dec 1 U.S. Marines from three amphibious assault ships have established a base in southern Iraq after encountering no resistance.

Dec 2 Enron Corporation files for bankruptcy, the largest in U.S. history.

Dec 9 U.S. Vice President Cheney tells Meet the Press "It's been pretty well confirmed that he [Muhamed Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service."

Dec 11 The Taliban has withdrawn from the city of Kandahar. The U.S. Defense Department claims that the Taliban has been defeated but cautions that their military campaign is far from over.

Dec 17 Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in the Tora Bora mountains are overrun. The CIA operative, Gary Bernsten, in charge of the operation, has asked Washington for troops to block the one route of withdrawal for bin Laden, al Qaeda and Taliban forces, but these troops have been denied him.

Dec 17 Bin Laden, it is estimated, is on his way southward from Tora Bora, on horseback, accompanied by bodyguards and aides, crossing through mountain passes and over smugglers' trails, with villages lighting campfires along the way to guide the horsemen through the snow, towards Pakistan's Pashtun area in Waziristan.

Dec 22 In Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai is sworn in as head of the interim government

Dec 27 China is granted permanent normal trade status with the United States.