What happened in 2003

World11

• Feb 14Dolly the sheep, the clone of a mammal, dies.
• Feb 26The War in Darfur begins after rebel groups rise up against the Sudanese government.
• Apr 20Tropical Storm Ana becomes the first recorded North Atlantic tropical storm to occur in April.
• AprHuman genome sequencedAn international project to read all of human genetic information (about 3 billion base pairs) was completed after 13 years. Six countries took part, including the United States, Britain and Japan.
• JulAugust – 2003 European heat wave: Europe experiences its hottest summer in over five centuries.
• Sep 5Hurricane Fabian strikes Bermuda.
• Sep 12Typhoon Maemi, makes landfall in South Korea as a category 3 typhoon with sustained winds of 125 mph.
• Sep 29Hurricane Kate first reaches hurricane status.
• Oct 15China launches Shenzhou 5, the country's first human spaceflight.
• Dec 9The United Nations Convention Against Corruption is opened for signing.
• Dec 13Saddam Hussein, the former president of Iraq, is captured in the small town of Ad-Dawr by the U.S. Army.

Japan3

• MarSpirited Away wins an Academy AwardMiyazaki Hayao's film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, the first Japanese film to do so. It had won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival the year before.
• Apr 28The iTunes Store launches.
• Sep 26The 8.3 Tokachi earthquake occurs off the coast of Hokkaido.

North America12

• Feb 1At the conclusion of the STS-107 mission, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates during reentry over Texas, killing all seven astronauts on board.
• Feb 20The Station nightclub fire: A fire broke out at a music venue in West Warwick, Rhode Island, United States, killing 100 people and injuring 230.
• Mar 11The first test of the GBU-43/B MOAB bomb takes place.
• May 1U.S. President George W. Bush declares an end to the invasion of Iraq in the Mission Accomplished speech. Hostilities would continue for several years during a period of Iraqi insurgency.
• May 15Contact with infected prairie dogs causes the first outbreak of human mpox in the Western Hemisphere. Cases continue until June 11.
• May 25A Boeing 727 aircraft is stolen from an airport in Luanda, Angola triggering an international terrorist investigation by the FBI and CIA. The aircraft and its pilots were never found.
• Jun 10NASA launches the Spirit rover.
• Jul 7NASA launches the Opportunity rover.
• Aug 14An overloaded power grid following the failure of FirstEnergy's alarm system in their control room causes the Northeast blackout of 2003, affecting more than 50 million people in the United States and Canada with nearly 100 related deaths.
• Aug 25The Spitzer Space Telescope is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
• Sep 18Hurricane Isabel makes landfall in North Carolina.
• Sep 20The 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup is held in the United States after the tournament is moved from China due to the SARS outbreak. Germany win their first title after they defeated Sweden in the final with a golden goal.

Europe24

• Feb 4The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is renamed to "Serbia and Montenegro" (after its two constituent states) after its leaders reconstitute the country into a loose state-union between Montenegro and Serbia, marking an end to the 73-year-long use of the name "Yugoslavia" by a sovereign state.
• Mar 11The International Criminal Court begins operations.
• Mar 12The World Health Organization issues a global alert on SARS when it spreads to Hong Kong and Vietnam after originating in Mainland China.
• Mar 12Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić of Serbia is assassinated in Belgrade by a sniper.
• Apr 12Hungary approves joining the European Union in a referendum.
• Apr 16The Treaty of Accession is signed in Athens between the European Union and ten countries (Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia), concerning these countries' accession into the EU, leading to the 2004 enlargement of the European Union.
• May 21The World Health Organization adopts its first treaty, the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
• Jun 2Mars Express launches, containing the Beagle 2 lander.
• Jun 20Former President of France Valéry Giscard d'Estaing presents his draft for a Constitution of the European Union.
• Jun 21The release of the novel Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix becomes a worldwide cultural event and boosts the literary industry.
• Sep 10Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh is murdered.
• Sep 14Estonia approves joining the European Union in a referendum.
• Sep 27SMART-1, an ESA spaceprobe and ESA's first mission to the moon, is launched from Kourou, French Guiana.
• Oct 7Nokia releases a handheld game console, the N-Gage. It becomes a major critical failure in the gaming industry.
• Nov 22Baghdad DHL attempted shootdown incident: Shortly after takeoff, a DHL Express cargo plane is struck on the left wing by a surface-to-air missile fired by the Islamic Army in Iraq and forced to land. All three crew members survive without injuries.

9 more in the app

USSR / Russia2

• May 122003 Znamenskoye suicide bombing: Chechen suicide bombers attack a government office in Znamenskoye, Russia, killing at least 59 people.
• Jun 1The Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty comes into effect between Russia and the United States.

Asia4

• Feb 15Millions of people worldwide take part in massive anti-war protests in anticipation of the United States and its allies invading Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime.
• Mar 232003 Nadimarg massacre: Islamist militants gather and execute citizens of a Hindu village in Kashmir, killing 24 of the 54 residents.
• Jun 6An agreement is reached for the United Nations to form a Khmer Rouge Tribunal.
• Jul 10The Three Gorges Dam in China begins operating when the first of its 34 generators is activated.

Middle East11

• Mar 20The Iraq War begins with the invasion of Iraq by the United States and allied forces.
• Apr 9U.S. forces seize control of Baghdad, ending the rule of Saddam Hussein.
• May 12003 Bingöl earthquake: A 6.4 earthquake strikes in Bingöl, Turkey, killing 177 people.
• Jul 13The Iraqi Governing Council is created by the United States as an ethnically diverse provisional government of Iraq.
• Aug 19In the Canal Hotel bombing in Baghdad, 22 people are killed, among them United Nations' Special Representative in Iraq Sérgio Vieira de Mello.
• Aug 19Shmuel HaNavi bus bombing: A Palestinian suicide bomber kills at least 18 people in a bus bombing in Jerusalem.
• Aug 29Imam Ali mosque bombing: A bomb kills at least 125 people, including Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, at a Shia mosque in Najaf, Iraq.
• Oct 4Maxim restaurant suicide bombing: A Palestinian suicide bomber attacks a restaurant in Haifa, Israel, killing at least 19 people.
• Oct 2727 October 2003 Baghdad bombings: A series of car bombings occur in Baghdad, Iraq, targeting multiple police stations and a Red Cross headquarters. Approximately 40 people are killed.
• Nov 15Suicide bombings occur in Istanbul. Further attacks occur five days later. They kill 63 people between them, making them the two deadliest terror attacks in Turkey, and cause uncertainty in the international economy.
• Dec 26The 6.6 Bam earthquake occurs in Iran.

Africa6

• Mar 7Peace talks break down in the First Ivorian Civil War.
• Mar 15Former General François Bozizé seizes power through a military coup in the Central African Republic.
• May 212003 Boumerdès earthquake: a 6.8 earthquake strikes in Algeria, killing over 2,200 people.
• Jul 16Major Fernando Pereira leads a failed coup against President Fradique de Menezes in São Tomé and Príncipe.
• Sep 14General Veríssimo Correia Seabra leads a bloodless coup against President Kumba Ialá in Guinea-Bissau. He steps down to create a new civilian government days later.
• Sep 19The United Nations establishes the United Nations Mission in Liberia with Resolution 1509.