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In England, notorious murderer and serial killer Frederick West commits suicide in prison aged 53.

A report funded by The Department of Health in England finds that the convicted serial killer, former GP Harold Shipman, may have killed in excess of 300 of his patients.

In one of the closest fought American Presidential elections in history, Vice President Al Gore presides over a joint session of Congress that certifies George W. Bush as the winner of the 2000 election.

Disgraced former Cabinet Minister Jonathan Aitken is released from jail after serving less than half of his 18 month sentence.

Aitken had been convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice after his libel case against the Guardian Newspaper and Granda Television collapsed.

The largest passenger ship ever built, RMS Queen Mary 2, is named by Queen Elizabeth II.

United Nations Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar sets off for Baghdad in a final diplomatic effort to avoid war with Iraq.

In Italy, Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to kill Pope John Paul II, is released from prison. He served nearly 20 years in jail.

San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, is hit by a huge earthquake, leaving over 1,000 people feared dead.

In North Wales, baby twins are taken into care by social services from a couple who bought the children for £8000 from America over the internet.

Photographs of prisoners being held at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay by the U.S. military are published. The photographs heighten speculation that the prisoner’s human rights are being abused.

The United Nations orders Libya to hand over the intelligence agents accused of the Lockerbie and French airliner bombings.

In Britain, the government launches a three million pound campaign to convince parents to immunise their children with the MMR jab - measles, mumps and rubella – amid fears that the job could trigger autism in some children.

Reporter Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan. He is subsequently murdered.

In Britain, Peter Mandelson, the Northern Ireland Secretary, resigns from the cabinet over a row concerning a passport application from an Indian billionaire. It the second time Mandelson has had to reign from the Cabinet.

The second NASA rover, sent to explore Mars, lands on the surface of the planet, where it will look for signs of water.

Condoleezza Rice is confirmed as the US Secretary of State. She is the highest ranking African-American woman ever to serve in a presidential cabinet.

Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara stages a military coup in Niger.

In South Africa, four police officers, appearing before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, admit to the 1977 killing of Stephen Biko, a leader of the South African 'Black consciousness' movement.

In Britain, solicitor Sally Clark is cleared by the Court of Appeal of murdering her two sons. Clark had already served more than three years of a life sentence.

In America, British-born 'shoe bomber' Richard Reid is sentenced to life in prison after he attempted to blow up a flight from Paris to Miami.

The hundredth British soldier is killed in Iraq since the invasion in 2003.

During the Italian general election campaign, Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi causes controversy by comparing himself to Jesus Christ.

The Gulf War: American planes bomb Baghdad, killing hundreds of Iraqi civilians.

Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is killed by a car bomb in Beirut.

The singer Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, wins damages from two UK newspapers which falsely claimed he supported terrorism.

In Cambodia, former Khmer Rouge commander Chhouk Rin loses a final appeal against his conviction in connection with the 1994 murder of three Western tourists.

Tony Blair calls the American detention camp at Guantanamo Bay an ‘anomaly’.

Writer Gerd Heidemann meets in secret with the directors of German publishing conglomerate Gruner + Jahr, to sell them what Heidemann claims are Adolph Hitler's diaries. The dairies are later proved to be fakes and Hediemann is sentenced to four years in jail.

The Rolling Stones play to an audience of over a million people on the Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Controversial British historian David Irving is sent to jail in Austria for denying the Holocaust.

In England, the Court of Appeal quashes the conviction of the "Bridgewater three", three men who were convicted of the killing of 13-year-old boy Carl Bridgewater in 1979.

Thieves break into a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent stealing £53 million, in Britain’s largest every robbery.

America president George W. Bush holds a summit with Russian president Vladmir Putin, in Slovakia. Bush is the first US president to visit the country.

Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo places the country in a state of emergency after an alleged military coup fails.

In Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni is re-elected for a third term.

In Jamaica, Portia Simpson Miller is elected leader of the governing People's National Party. She becomes the countries first female leader.

In the High Court of Justice in London the authors of the 1982 book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, sue Random House, publishers of the Dan Brown novel The Da Vinci Code, claiming that Brown’s book contains ideas stolen from them.

In Selby, North Yorkshire a train crashes into a car which had veered off the motorway, killing ten people.

In a court case in South Africa, former deputy president Jacob Zuma is cleared of rape.

The Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev claims responsibility for organised the Beslan school siege in which at least 320 hostages were killed.

As a precondition to the restoration of diplomatic relations with Britain, the Iranian government states that it will no longer seek to harm author Salman Rushdie.

Cambodia’s parliament passes legalisation to enable the creation of a UN supported tribunal to put on trial former leaders of the Khmer Rouge.

The British government announces that the Queen will start to pay income tax.

In a re-run of the Presidential election in Ukraine after electoral fraud had annulled the first result Viktor Yushchenko wins the election and the so-called “Orange Revolution” is victorious.

The Mars Polar Lander launches from Cape Canaveral, U.S.A.