On this day
Revisit the music, news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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Sony Corp will buy shares of Aiwa that it does not already own and make company wholly owned subsidiary; Sony currently owns 61 percent of Aiwa (S)
Little-known global agreement that places untested new requirements on domestic regulation of professional services like accounting is quietly advancing, with help of firms like Arthur Andersen, Enron Corp's much-criticized auditor; new rules would give World Trade Organization oversight on domestic regulation of accounting; any new national regulation could be challenged by other countries as unfair if it is 'more trade restrictive than necessary'; critics say such standard could hobble government's ability to regulate many services; American officials say requirement will prevent governments from setting up discriminatory rules, limitations and quotas that would interfere with right of foreign service companies to enter their markets (M)
Zipcar, automated hourly car rental service, has gained 1,700 customers in Boston in 18 months since it began, has 300 customers in Washington, and has now arrived in New York City with fleet of ten compact Volkswagens; company president Robin M Chase sees 'phenomenal market' for service; photo; table compares costs of renting Zipcar for jaunts to Fairway or Hamptons (M)
New York Giants release linebacker Jessie Armstead, offensive tackle Lomas Brown, safety Sam Garnes, quarterback Jason Garrett and cornerback Dave Thomas to squeeze under salary cap; hope to re-sign some of their own players in lieu of free agents; tight end Howard Cross retires after 13-year career with Giants; photo (M)
Water regulators in New Jersey and New York, facing winter drought, and an onset of emergency earlier in year than at any time in modern memory, are starting to worry that past experience may not be a good guide for what lies ahead; photos; graph shows capacity of 13 NJ reservoirs, at present and over past four decades (M)
Music on My Birthday
The Top 50 albums for the chart week of February 27, 2002, covering March 1, 2002.
Alan Jackson
Creed
Jennifer Lopez
Linkin Park
Nickelback
2002U.S. invasion of Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda begins in eastern Afghanistan.[†]
The war in Afghanistan was a prolonged armed conflict lasting from 2001 to 2021. It began with the invasion by a United States-led coalition under the name Operation Enduring Freedom in response to the September 11 attacks carried out by al-Qaeda. The Taliban and its allies were quickly expelled from major population centers by US-led forces supporting the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, thus toppling the Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate. Three years later the US-sponsored Islamic Republic was established, but by then the Taliban had reorganized under their founder, Mullah Omar, and began a widespread insurgency against the new Afghan government and coalition forces. The conflict finally ended decades later as the 2021 Taliban offensive reestablished the Islamic Emirate. It was the longest war in United States military history, surpassing the Vietnam War by six months.
2002The Envisat environmental satellite successfully launches aboard an Ariane 5 rocket to reach an orbit of 800 km (500 mi) above the Earth, which was the then-largest payload at 10.5 m long and with a diameter of 4.57 m.[†]
Envisat is a large Earth-observing satellite which has been inactive since 2012. It is still in orbit and considered space debris. Operated by the European Space Agency (ESA), it was the world's largest civilian Earth observation satellite.
2002Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on STS-109 to service the Hubble Space Telescope.[†]
Space Shuttle Columbia (OV-102) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA. Named after the first American ship to circumnavigate the globe, and the female personification of the United States, Columbia was the first of five Space Shuttle orbiters to fly in space, debuting the Space Shuttle launch vehicle on its maiden flight on April 12, 1981 and becoming the first spacecraft to be re-used after its first flight when it launched on STS-2 on November 12, 1981. As only the second full-scale orbiter to be manufactured after the Approach and Landing Test vehicle Enterprise, Columbia retained unique external and internal features compared to later orbiters, such as test instrumentation and distinctive black chines. In addition to a heavier aft fuselage and the retention of an internal airlock throughout its lifetime, these made Columbia the heaviest of the five spacefaring orbiters: around 1,000 kilograms heavier than Challenger and 3,600 kilograms heavier than Endeavour when originally constructed. Columbia also carried ejection seats based on those from the SR-71 during its first six flights until 1983, and from 1986 onwards carried an imaging pod on its vertical stabilizer.
In 2002, the world population was approximately 6,337,730,342 people[†]