What happened in 2002

“Foolish”

Ashanti · 10 weeks at #1 in 2002

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1. Jan 5How You Remind MeNickelback2 wks
2. Jan 19U Got It BadUsher5 wks
3. Feb 23Always On TimeJa Rule Featuring Ashanti2 wks
4. Mar 9Ain't It FunnyJennifer Lopez Featuring Ja Rule6 wks
5. Apr 20FoolishAshanti10 wks
6. Jun 29Hot In HerreNelly7 wks
7. Aug 17DilemmaNelly Featuring Kelly Rowland10 wks
8. Oct 5A Moment Like ThisKelly Clarkson2 wks
9. Nov 9Lose YourselfEminem8 wks

Dates are the first chart week at #1 in 2002; weeks count only those in 2002.Find the #1 song on your birthday →

1. Jan 8President of the United States George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act.
2. Jan 16War in Afghanistan: The UN 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.
3. Jan 23American journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and later murdered by al-Qaeda agents in Karachi, Pakistan.
4. Feb 1Daniel Pearl, American journalist and South Asia Bureau Chief of The Wall Street Journal, kidnapped on January 23, is beheaded and mutilated by his captors.
5. Feb 27Violent riots, perceived to have been instigated by a train fire that killed 59 Hindu pilgrims, broke out in the Indian state of Gujarat, killing at least 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, over three days.
6. Mar 24At the 74th Academy Awards, Halle Berry became the first African American to win Best Actress, winning for her role as Leticia Musgrove in Monster's Ball.
7. Apr 5In the first reported data breach, 250,000 social security numbers collected by the State of California were stolen from a data center.
8. Apr 14Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez returns to office two days after being ousted and arrested by the country's military.
9. May 10FBI agent Robert Hanssen is sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for selling United States secrets to Russia for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds.
10. May 12Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro, becoming the first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since the Cuban Revolution.
11. Oct 2The Beltway sniper attacks begin in Washington, D.C., extending over three weeks and killing 10 people.
12. Nov 15Hu Jintao becomes General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and a new nine-member Politburo Standing Committee is inaugurated.
13. Nov 21NATO invites Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia to become members.
14. Dec 18California gubernatorial recall: Then Governor of California Gray Davis announces that the state would face a record budget deficit of $35 billion, roughly double the figure reported during his reelection campaign one month earlier.

Event summaries from Wikipedia’s “On this day”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Each links to its article.

• U.S. President

  George W. Bush

• UK Prime Minister

  Tony Blair

• Prime Minister of Canada

  Jean Chrétien

• German Chancellor

  Gerhard Schröder

• Prime Minister of Japan

  Junichiro Koizumi

• President of Russia

  Vladimir Putin

Everyone who held the office at some point in 2002, from Wikidata.

A selection of the best-documented titles on Wikidata, by first release year; not a box-office ranking.

• Caitlin ClarkAmerican basketball player · Jan 22
• Sophia LillisAmerican actress · Feb 13
• Emma MyersAmerican actress · Apr 2
• Sadie SinkAmerican actress · Apr 16
• Angel ReeseAmerican basketball player · May 6
• Benson BooneAmerican singer-songwriter · Jun 25
• Gaten MatarazzoAmerican actor and singer · Sep 8
• Jenna OrtegaAmerican actress · Sep 27
• Maddie ZieglerAmerican dancer and actress · Sep 30
• Ben SheltonAmerican tennis player · Oct 9

From Wikipedia’s “On this day”, CC BY-SA 4.0.