March 24 – Apple Computer releases Mac OS X, their long-awaited next-generation operating system; with version 10.0. It goes on to be the second-most used desktop operating system with a market share of roughly 10 percent.[3]
Hainan Island incident: A Chinese fighter jet bumps into a U.S. EP-3E surveillance aircraft, which is forced to make an emergency landing in Hainan, China. The U.S. crew is detained for 10 days and the F-8 Chinese pilot, Wang Wei, goes missing and is presumed dead.
Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal kills his father, the king, his mother and other members of the royal family with an assault rifle and then shoots himself in the Nepalese royal massacre. Dipendra dies June 4, as King of Nepal. His uncle Gyanendra ascends to the throne.
A Hamas suicide bomber kills 21, mostly teenagers, in the Dolphinarium disco in Tel Aviv, Israel.
June 19 – A missile hits a soccer field in northern Iraq (Tel Afr County), killing 23 and wounding 11. According to U.S. officials, it is an Iraqi missile that malfunctioned.[4]
June 21 – The world's longest train is run by BHP Iron Ore between Newman and Port Hedland in Western Australia (a distance of 275 km (171 mi)); the train consists of 682 loaded iron ore wagons and 8 GE AC6000CW locomotives, giving a gross weight of almost 100,000 tonnes and moves 82,262 tonnes of ore; the train is 7.353 km (4.569 mi) long.
July 20–22 – The 27th G8 summit takes place in Genoa, Italy. Massive demonstrations are held against the meeting by members of the anti-globalization movement. One demonstrator, Carlo Giuliani, is killed by a policeman. Several others are badly injured during a police attack on a school used by the protesters as their headquarters.
August 24 – Air Transat Flight 236 runs out of fuel over the Atlantic Ocean (en route to Lisbon from Toronto) and makes an emergency landing in the Azores, all 306 people onboard survive.
In Belfast, Protestant loyalists begin a picket of Holy Cross, a Catholic primary school for girls. For the next 11 weeks, riot police escort the schoolchildren and their parents through hundreds of protesters, amid rioting and heightened violence.
The United States, Canada and Israel withdraw from the U.N. Conference on Racism because they feel that the issue of Zionism is overemphasized.
Donald Rumsfeld gives a speech regarding $2.3 trillion in Pentagon spending that cannot be accounted for. He identifies the Pentagon bureaucracy as the biggest threat to America.[7]
September 27 – Zug massacre: In Zug, Switzerland, Friedrich Leibacher shoots 18 citizens, killing 14 and then himself.
October
October 1 – Militants attack the state legislature building in Srinagar, Kashmir, killing 38.
October 2 – Swissair seeks for bankruptcy protection and grounds its entire fleet, resulting in over 230 flights cancelled and stranding 18,000 people worldwide.
November 13 – In the first such act since World War II, U.S. President George W. Bush signs an executive order allowing military tribunals against any foreigners suspected of having connections to terrorist acts or planned acts against the United States.
November 30 – Gary Ridgway, a.k.a. The Green River Killer, is arrested outside the truck factory where he had worked in Renton, Washington. His arrest marks the end of one of the longest running homicide investigations in US history.