Timeline October 2002

Events in October 2002 12

• 1930 – 2002 Richard Harris (1930-2002) Died 25 October 2002, aged 72 The Irish actor Richard Harris earned an Oscar nomination for This Sporting Life in 1963 and later for The Field, and had a hit single with the song 'MacArthur Park'. Known for a hard-living reputation, he revived his career with a role in Unforgiven and, at the end of his life, as Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films.
• 1965 – 2002 Jam Master Jay (1965-2002) Died 30 October 2002, aged 37 Jason Mizell, known as Jam Master Jay, was the DJ of Run-DMC, the group from Queens that carried hip-hop into the mainstream in the 1980s with hits such as 'Walk This Way' and a landmark Adidas endorsement. He was shot dead in his recording studio in Queens, a crime that went unsolved for many years. Two men were convicted of the killing in 2024.
• 2002 – 2026 The Spectator -- Liddle Britain (2002-2026) Liddle begins writing for The Spectator in October 2002, immediately after leaving the BBC. His first column, "Thought for the Day" -- a nod to the Today programme -- is later rebranded "Liddle Britain." Over 24 years he becomes the magazines most popular and most controversial contributor: shocking, delighting and infuriating readers in roughly equal proportion. He becomes associate editor and a fixture on The Spectators podcasts, broadcasts and events. In 2018 he sells out the 2,300-capacity London Palladium for a Spectator in-conversation event -- one of the few journalists in Britain capable of filling a theatre.
• 2002 Beltway sniper attacks Three weeks of random shootings around Washington For three weeks in October 2002, John Allen Muhammad and the teenager Lee Boyd Malvo shot people at random around Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia, killing ten and wounding others while firing from a hole cut in the boot of a car. The region was gripped by fear as police pursued misleading leads. The pair were arrested at a highway rest stop on 24 October, and Muhammad was later executed.
• 2002 eBay acquires PayPal Online marketplace buys its dominant payment service eBay completed its purchase of PayPal in a stock deal worth about 1.5 billion dollars on 3 October 2002, having previously promoted its own payment system. PayPal became the default way to pay on the site and grew into a global payments company. Several of its early leaders went on to found or fund firms such as Tesla, YouTube and LinkedIn.
• 2002 Iraq war authorisation and UN Resolution 1441 US and UN raise pressure on Baghdad In mid-October 2002 the US Congress passed a resolution authorising President Bush to use force against Iraq. On 8 November the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1441, declaring Iraq in material breach of earlier resolutions and offering a final chance to disarm under renewed inspections. Disputes over whether the resolution permitted war dominated the following months.
• 2002 Bali bombings 202 killed in Indonesia nightclub attack Islamist terrorists detonated bombs in two nightclubs in Kuta, Bali on October 12, 2002, killing 202 people including 88 Australians in the deadliest terrorist attack in Indonesian history.
• 2002 "Shaman" Released Follow-up continues guest-collaboration formula Released on October 22, 2002, Shaman continued the guest-artist collaboration model of Supernatural, featuring the hit single "The Game of Love" with Michelle Branch, which won a Grammy Award. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, proving the commercial success of Supernatural was not a one-time event. It further cemented Santana's renewed presence on mainstream radio.
• 2002 Foo Fighters release One by One All My Life With All My Life and Times Like These.
• 2002 Moscow theatre hostage crisis Chechen militants seize a packed theatre On 23 October 2002 about 40 armed Chechen militants took some 850 people hostage during a musical at the Dubrovka theatre in Moscow, demanding a withdrawal from Chechnya. After a standoff of nearly three days, Russian special forces pumped an undisclosed aerosol anaesthetic into the hall and stormed it. All the attackers and around 130 hostages died, almost all of them from the gas.
• 2002 Lula elected president of Brazil Former union leader wins on his fourth attempt Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party won Brazil's presidential runoff on 27 October 2002 with about 61 percent of the vote, after losing three previous elections. A former metalworker and strike leader, he was the country's first left-wing president in decades. Markets that had feared his victory steadied as he kept orthodox economic policies in his first term.
• 2002 Kurt Cobain's last song You Know You're Right released Final recording Nirvana's last studio recording, released eight years later.