2001

Events

January

• January 1 - Kolkata officially restores its name from Calcutta.
• January 10 - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission approves the merger of America Online and Time Warner to form AOL Time Warner.
• January 13 - A 7.6 magnitude earthquake hits all of El Salvador, killing at least 800 people and leaving thousands homeless.
• January 15 - Wikipedia is launched.
• January 20
• * George W. Bush is sworn in as the 43rd President of the United States.
• * Impeachment proceedings against Philippine President Joseph Estrada, accused of playing Jueteng, end preeminently and trigger the second EDSA People Power Revolution. His Vice-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo succeeds him as the 14th President of the Republic.
• January 21 - Taba Summit between Israel and its Arab opponents begins in Egypt.
• January 23 - The Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident occurs.
• January 26 - The 7.7 Gujarat earthquake shakes Western India with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X, leaving 13,805–20,023 dead and about 166,800 injured.
• January 26 - Death of Diane Whipple: An American lacrosse player and college coach is mauled to death by two Presa Canarios, a large breed of dog, in San Francisco.

  February

• February 9 - The submarine USS Greeneville accidentally strikes and sinks the Japanese fishing vessel Ehime-Maru near Hawaii.
• February 12 - The NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touches down in the "saddle" region of 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
• February 13 - A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hits El Salvador, killing at least 400.
• February 16 - Iraq disarmament crisis: British and U.S. forces carry out bombing raids, attempting to disable Iraq's air defense network.
• February 18 - FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested and charged with spying for Russia for 25 years.
• February 19 - The 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak begins.
• February 26 - Daft Punk releases their second studio album, Discovery.
• February 28 - The Great Heck rail crash occurs in the north of England, killing 10 and injuring 82 others.

  March

• March 2 - The Taliban begins destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas.
• March 4 - The Hintze Ribeiro disaster in northern Portugal kills 59 people.
• March 23 - The deorbit of Russian space station Mir is carried out near Nadi, Fiji, with Mir falling into the South Pacific Ocean.
• March 24 - Apple Computer releases Mac OS X, their long-awaited next-generation operating system; with version 10.0. It goes on to be the second-most used desktop operating system with a market share of roughly 10 percent.

  April

• April 1
• * Hainan Island incident: A Chinese fighter jet bumps into a U.S. EP-3E surveillance aircraft, which is forced to make an emergency landing in Hainan, China. The U.S. crew is detained for 10 days and the F-8 Chinese pilot, Wang Wei, goes missing and is presumed dead.
• * Former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia President Slobodan Milošević surrenders to police special forces, to be tried on charges of war crimes.
• * In the Netherlands, the Act on the Opening up of Marriage goes into effect. The Act allows same-sex couples to marry legally.
• April 28 - Soyuz TM-32 lifts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying the first space tourist, American Dennis Tito.

  May

• May 6 - Space tourist Dennis Tito returns to Earth aboard Soyuz TM-31.
• May 7 - In Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, an attempt is made to reconstruct the Ferhadija mosque. However, the ceremony results in mass riots by Serb nationalists, who beat and stone 300 elderly Bosnian Muslims.
• May 13 - Silvio Berlusconi wins the general election and becomes Prime Minister of Italy for the second time.
• May 22 - A large trans-Neptunian object is found during the Deep Ecliptic Survey.
• May 24
• * Sherpa Temba Tsheri, 16, becomes the youngest person to summit Mount Everest.
• * The Versailles wedding hall disaster in Jerusalem, Israel, kills 23 and injures 380 others.

  June

• June 1
• * Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal kills his father, the king, his mother and other members of the royal family with an assault rifle and then shoots himself in the Nepalese royal massacre. Dipendra dies June 4, as King of Nepal. His uncle Gyanendra ascends to the throne.
• * A Hamas suicide bomber kills 21, mostly teenagers, in the Dolphinarium disco in Tel Aviv, Israel.
• June 5–9 - Tropical Storm Allison produces 36 inches of rain in Houston, killing 22, damaging the Texas Medical Center, and causing more than of damage overall.
• June 6 - U.S. Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont leaves the Republican Party to caucus as an independent with Democrats, handing majority control of the Senate to the Democratic Party and Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
• June 7 - George W. Bush signs the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 in the United States, the first of a series which becomes known as the Bush tax cuts.
• June 19 - A missile hits a soccer field in northern Iraq, killing 23 and wounding 11. According to U.S. officials, it is an Iraqi missile that malfunctioned.
• June 21 - The world's longest train is run by BHP Iron Ore between Newman and Port Hedland in Western Australia ; the train consists of 682 loaded iron ore wagons and 8 GE AC6000CW locomotives, giving a gross weight of almost 100,000 tonnes and moves 82,262 tonnes of ore; the train is long.
• June 23 - The 8.4 southern Peru earthquake shakes coastal Peru with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII. A destructive tsunami follows, leaving at least 75 people dead, and 2,687 injured.

  July

• July 2 - The world's first self-contained artificial heart is implanted in Robert Tools in the United States.
• July 3 - Vladivostok Air Flight 352 crashes on approach to landing at Irkutsk Airport, Russia, killing 145.
• July 7 - 2001 Bradford riots: Race riots erupt in Bradford in the north of England after National Front members reportedly stab an Asian man outside a pub.
• July 13 - The International Olympic Committee awards Beijing the right to host the 2008 Summer Olympics.
• July 16
• * The People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation sign the 2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship.
• * The FBI arrests Dmitry Sklyarov at a convention in Las Vegas for violating a provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
• July 20–22 - The 27th G8 summit takes place in Genoa, Italy. Massive demonstrations are held against the meeting by members of the anti-globalization movement. One demonstrator, Carlo Giuliani, is killed by a policeman. Several others are badly injured during a police attack on a school used by the protesters as their headquarters.
• July 24
• * Bandaranaike Airport attack: Tamil Tigers attack Bandaranaike International Airport in Sri Lanka, causing an estimated $500 million of damage.
• * Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, deposed as the last Tsar of Bulgaria when a child, is sworn in as the democratically elected 48th Prime Minister of Bulgaria.

  August

• August 1 - Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore has a Ten Commandments monument installed in the judiciary building, leading to a lawsuit to have it removed and his own removal from office.
• August 6 - Erwadi fire incident, 28 mentally ill persons bound by chains were burnt to death at a faith based institution at Erwadi, Tamil Nadu.
• August 9 - A Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem is attacked by a Palestinian terrorist, who kills 15 civilians and wounds 130.
• August 10 - The 2001 Angola train attack, causing 252 deaths.
• August 21 - NATO decides to send a peace-keeping force to the Republic of Macedonia.
• August 24 - Air Transat Flight 236 runs out of fuel over the Atlantic Ocean and makes an emergency landing in the Azores, all 306 people onboard survive.
• August 25 - American singer Aaliyah and several members of her record company are killed as their overloaded aircraft crashes shortly after takeoff from Marsh Harbour Airport, The Bahamas.
• August 31-September 1 - The 2001 Vancouver TV realignment occurs in British Columbia, Canada.
• August 31 - The World Conference against Racism 2001 begins in Durban, South Africa.

  September

• September 1 - Nakai, the first captive orca to be born as a result of artificial insemination, is born at SeaWorld San Diego.
• September 3
• * In Belfast, Protestant loyalists begin a picket of Holy Cross, a Catholic primary school for girls. For the next 11 weeks, riot police escort the schoolchildren and their parents through hundreds of protesters, amid rioting and heightened violence.
• * The United States, Canada and Israel withdraw from the U.N. Conference on Racism because they feel that the issue of Zionism is overemphasized.
• September 4 - Tokyo DisneySea opens to the public as part of the Tokyo Disney Resort in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan.
• September 5 - The piece As Slow as Possible, composed by John Cage, begins. It will last 639 years, finishing in the year 2640.
• September 6 - United States v. Microsoft Corp.: The United States Justice Department announces that it no longer seeks to break up software maker Microsoft, and will instead seek a lesser antitrust penalty.
• September 9
• *A suicide bomber kills Ahmad Shah Massoud, military commander of the Afghan Northern Alliance.
• *68 people die of methanol poisoning in Pärnu County, Estonia.
• *The Unix billennium is reached, marking the beginning of the use of 10-digit decimal Unix time stamps.
• September 10
• *Donald Rumsfeld gives a speech regarding $2.3 trillion in Pentagon spending that cannot be accounted for. He identifies the Pentagon bureaucracy as the biggest threat to America.
• *Antônio da Costa Santos, mayor of Campinas, Brazil is assassinated.
• *Charles Ingram wins £1 million on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, but the prize was cancelled after it was revealed that he cheated his way through most of the questions.
• September 11 - Approximately 2,996 victims are killed or fatally injured in the September 11 attacks at the World Trade Center in New York City, The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and in rural Shanksville, Pennsylvania after American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 are hijacked and crash into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, American Airlines Flight 77 is hijacked and crashes into the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93 is hijacked and crashes into grassland in Shanksville, due to the passengers fighting to regain control of the airplane. The World Trade Center towers collapse as a result of the crashes.
• September 12 - Ansett Australia Airlines is placed into administration, the company's fleet is grounded 2 days later on September 14.
• September 13 - Civilian aircraft traffic resumes in the United States after the September 11 attacks.
• September 14
• * Historic National Prayer Service held at Washington National Cathedral for victims of the September 11 attacks. A similar service is held in Canada on Parliament Hill, the largest vigil ever held in the nation's capital.
• * Nintendo Gamecube is released in Japan, followed by other releases in western markets in late 2001.
• September 17 - The New York Stock Exchange reopens for trading after the September 11 attacks, the longest closure since the Great Depression.
• September 18 - The 2001 anthrax attacks commence as letters containing anthrax spores are mailed from Princeton, New Jersey, to ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, the New York Post, and the National Enquirer. Twenty-two people in total are exposed, with five resulting fatalities.
• September 20 - In an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people, U.S. President George W. Bush declares a "War on Terror".
• September 21
• *In Toulouse, France, the AZote Fertilisant chemical factory explodes, killing 29 and seriously wounding over 2,500.
• *Increased racial tensions in Peterborough, England, following the September 11 attacks result in the murder of Ross Parker by a gang of ten Muslims in a racially motivated attack.
• *Deep Space 1 flies within 2,200 km of Comet Borrelly.
• * is broadcast by over 35 network and cable channels, raising over $200 million for the victims of the September 11 attacks.
• September 27 - Zug massacre: In Zug, Switzerland, Friedrich Leibacher shoots 18 citizens, killing 14 and then himself.

  October

• October 1 - Militants attack the state legislature building in Srinagar, Kashmir, killing 38.
• October 2 - Swissair seeks for bankruptcy protection and grounds its entire fleet, resulting in over 230 flights cancelled and stranding 18,000 people worldwide.
• October 4 - Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 crashes over the Black Sea en route from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Novosibirsk, Russia; 78 are killed.
• October 7 - War in Afghanistan: In response to the September 11 attacks, the United States invades Afghanistan, with participation from other nations, thus officially beginning the War on Terror.
• October 8
• * A twin engine Cessna and Scandinavian Airlines jetliner collide in heavy fog during takeoff from Milan, Italy, killing 118 people.
• * U.S. President George W. Bush announces the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security.
• October 9 - Second mailing of anthrax letters from Trenton, New Jersey in the 2001 anthrax attacks.
• October 15 - NASA's Galileo spacecraft passes within of Jupiter's moon Io.
• October 17 - Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi becomes the first Israeli minister to be assassinated in a terrorist attack.
• October 19 - SIEV X sinks en route to Christmas Island, killing 353 people.
• October 23
• * The Provisional Irish Republican Army of Northern Ireland commences disarmament after peace talks.
• * The iPod is first introduced by Apple.
• October 25
• * Microsoft releases Windows XP.
• * Citing connotations with the Rwandan genocide, the government of Rwanda adopts a new national flag for the country.
• October 26 - U.S. President George W. Bush signs the Patriot Act into law.

  November

• November - VAG, the public transport operator in Nuremberg, Germany, begins testing a hybrid capabus which uses a diesel-electric drive system with electric double-layer capacitors.
• November 2 - The Glocal Forum, leading international organization in the field of city-to-city cooperation, is established by Ambassador Uri Savir.
• November 4
• * Hurricane Michelle hits Cuba, destroying crops and thousands of homes.
• * The Police Service of Northern Ireland is established, as successor to the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
• November 7 - Sabena, the national airline of Belgium, goes bankrupt.
• November 10
• * 2001 Australian federal election: John Howard's Liberal/National Coalition Government is re-elected with a slightly increased majority, defeating the Labor Party led by Kim Beazley.
• * Heavy rains and mudslides in Algeria kill more than 900.
• November 11 - Journalists Pierre Billaud, Johanne Sutton and Volker Handloik are killed in Afghanistan during an attack on the convoy they are traveling in.
• November 12
• * American Airlines Flight 587 crashes in Queens minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 on board.
• * War in Afghanistan: Taliban forces abandon Kabul, ahead of advancing Northern Alliance troops.
• November 13 - In the first such act since World War II, U.S. President George W. Bush signs an executive order allowing military tribunals against any foreigners suspected of having connections to terrorist acts or planned acts against the United States.
• November 14 - War in Afghanistan: Northern Alliance fighters take over the capital Kabul.
• November 23 - The Convention on Cybercrime is signed in Budapest, Hungary.
• November 27 - A hydrogen atmosphere is discovered on the extrasolar planet Osiris by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.
• November 30 - Gary Ridgway, a.k.a. The Green River Killer, is arrested outside the truck factory where he had worked in Renton, Washington. His arrest marks the end of one of the longest running homicide investigations in US history.

  December

• December - The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty produces a report on Responsibility to protect.
• December 1 - The last Trans World Airlines flight lands at St. Louis International Airport, following TWA's purchase by American Airlines.
• December 2
• * Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection 5 days after Dynegy cancels a US$8.4 billion buyout bid.
• * 1998–2002 Argentine great depression: Corralito - The government effectively freezes all bank accounts for twelve months leading to December 2001 riots in Argentina.
• December 3 - Officials announce that one of the Taliban prisoners captured after the prison uprising at Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan is John Walker Lindh, a United States citizen.
• December 11
• * The People's Republic of China joins the World Trade Organization.
• * The United States government indicts Zacarias Moussaoui for involvement in the September 11 attacks.
• * The United States Customs Service raids members of international software piracy group DrinkOrDie in Operation Buccaneer.
• December 13
• * 2001 Indian Parliament attack: 12 are killed, leading to a 2001–02 India–Pakistan standoff.
• * U.S. President George W. Bush announces the US withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
• December 15 - The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after 11 years and $27,000,000 spent to fortify it, without fixing its famous lean.
• December 19
• * A record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 hPa is recorded at Tosontsengel, Zavkhan, Mongolia.
• *Argentine economic crisis: December riots: Riots erupt in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• December 22
• * Burhanuddin Rabbani, political leader of the Northern Alliance, hands over power in Afghanistan to the interim government headed by President Hamid Karzai.
• * British Islamic terrorist Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63.
• December 27
• * The People's Republic of China is granted permanent normal trade status with the United States.
• * Tropical Storm Vamei forms within 1.5 degrees of the equator. No other tropical cyclone in recorded history has come as close to the equator.
• December 29 - A fire at the Mesa Redonda shopping center in Lima, Peru, kills at least 291.

  Births

January–February

• January 1 - Angourie Rice, Australian actress
• January 9 - Rodrygo Goes, Brazilian footballer
• January 15 - Alexandra Agiurgiuculese, Romanian-Italian rhythmic gymnast
• February 7 - R. J. Hampton, American basketball player
• February 13 - Kaapo Kakko, Finnish hockey player
• February 15 - Haley Tju, American actress
• February 19 - David Mazouz, American actor
• February 21 - Isabella Acres, American actress
• February 24 - Ramona Marquez, British actress

  March–April

• March 9 - Jeon So-mi, Canadian-South Korean-Dutch singer
• March 30 - Anastasia Potapova, Russian tennis player
• March 31 - James Wiseman, American basketball player

  May–June

• May 8 - Jordyn Huitema, Canadian soccer player
• May 14 - Jack Hughes, American ice hockey player
• May 17 - AJ Mitchell, American singer-songwriter and musician
• May 22 - Emma Chamberlain, American YouTuber
• May 24 - Darren Espanto, Filipino singer and performer
• June 1 - Ed Oxenbould, Australian actor
• June 4 - Takefusa Kubo, Japanese footballer
• June 12 - Théo Maledon, French basketball player
• June 18 - Gabriel Martinelli, Brazilian footballer
• June 21
• * Eleanor Worthington Cox, British actress
• * Alexandra Obolentseva, Russian chess player

  July–August

• July 2 - Abraham Attah, Ghanaian actor
• July 8 - Yang Peiyi, Chinese singer
• July 10 - Isabela Moner, American actress and singer
• July 22 - Alisha Newton, Canadian actress
• August 5
• * Anthony Edwards, American basketball player
• * Josie Totah, American actress
• August 6 - Ty Simpkins, American actor
• August 22 - LaMelo Ball, American basketball player
• August 23 - Zaijian Jaranilla, Filipino actor

  September–October

• September 3 - Kaia Gerber, American model and actress
• September 15 - Emma Fuhrmann, American actress
• October 1
• * Luna Blaise, American actress and singer
• * Mason Greenwood, English footballer
• October 5 - Dalila Bela, Canadian actress
• October 8
• * Witan Sulaeman, Indonesian footballer
• * Percy Hynes White, Canadian actor
• October 12 - Raymond Ochoa, American actor and voice actor
• October 13 - Caleb McLaughlin, American actor
• October 14 - Rowan Blanchard, American actress
• October 17 - Jake Beale, Canadian actor
• October 19 - Art Parkinson, Irish actor
• October 20 - Paige Bueckers, American basketball player
• October 25 - Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Brabant, daughter and Heiress Apparent of Philippe, King of the Belgians
• October 29 - Beckham Putra, Indonesian footballer

  November–December

• November 22 - Zhong Chenle, South Korean singer
• November 27 - Morgana Davies, Australian actress
• December 1 - Aiko, Princess Toshi of Japan
• December 14 - Joshua Rush, American actor
• December 16 - Sebastian Croft, English actor
• December 18 - Billie Eilish, American singer
• December 28 - Madison De La Garza, American actress

  Deaths

January

• January 1 – Ray Walston, American actor
• January 2 – William P. Rogers, American diplomat
• January 7 – Charles Helou, 9th President of Lebanon
• January 9 – Paul Vanden Boeynants, 2-time Prime Minister of Belgium
• January 12
• * William Redington Hewlett, American businessman
• * Adhemar da Silva, Brazilian athlete
• January 13 – Michael Cuccione, Canadian child actor and activist
• January 16 – Laurent-Désiré Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
• January 27 – Marie-José of Belgium, last Queen of Italy
• January 30 – Michel Marcel Navratil, last French citizen and male survivor of the Titanic disaster
• January 31 – Gordon R. Dickson, Canadian writer

  February

• February 4
• * J. J. Johnson, American jazz trombonist
• * Iannis Xenakis, Greek composer
• February 7
• * Dale Evans, American actress, singer, and songwriter
• * King Moody, American actor
• February 9 – Herbert A. Simon, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
• February 10 – Lewis Arquette, American film actor, writer and producer
• February 13 – Ugo Fano, Italian-American physicist
• February 18
• * Balthus, French painter
• * Dale Earnhardt, American auto racing driver
• February 19 – Stanley Kramer, American film director
• February 20 – Rosemary DeCamp, American actress
• February 22 – John Fahey, American guitarist and composer
• February 24 – Claude Shannon, American mathematician
• February 25 – Sir Don Bradman, Australian cricketer

  March

• March 4 – Jean René Bazaine, French painter
• March 9 – Richard Stone, American composer
• March 12 – Robert Ludlum, American author
• March 15 – Ann Sothern, American actress and singer
• March 18 – John Phillips, American singer-songwriter
• March 20 – Ilie Verdeț, 51st Prime Minister of Romania
• March 22 – William Hanna, American animator and businessman
• March 23 – David McTaggart, Canadian-born environmental campaigner
• March 31 – Clifford Shull, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

  April

• April 7
• * David Graf, American actor
• * Beatrice Straight, American actress
• April 14 – Hiroshi Teshigahara, Japanese director
• April 15 – Joey Ramone, American musician and singer
• April 20
• * Va'ai Kolone, Prime Minister of Samoa
• * Giuseppe Sinopoli, Italian conductor and composer
• April 25 – Michele Alboreto, Italian racing driver
• April 29 – Barend Biesheuvel, Dutch politician and corporate director, Prime Minister of the Netherlands

  May

• May 11 – Douglas Adams, English author
• May 12 – Perry Como, American singer
• May 13
• * Jason Miller, American actor and playwright
• * R. K. Narayan, Indian novelist
• May 17 – Jacques-Louis Lions, French mathematician
• May 21 – Mahmoud Zuabi, 61st Prime Minister of Syria
• May 22 – Jenő Fock, 49th Prime Minister of Hungary
• May 24 – Javier Urruticoechea, Spanish footballer
• May 26 – Anne Haney, American actress
• May 31 – Arlene Francis, American actress and game show panelist

  June

• June 1
• * Nepalese royal massacre:
• ** King Birendra of Nepal
• ** Queen Aishwarya of Nepal
• ** Dhirendra of Nepal
• ** Prince Nirajan of Nepal
• ** Princess Shruti of Nepal
• * Nkosi Johnson, South African AIDS awareness campaigner
• June 2 – Imogene Coca, American actress
• June 3 – Anthony Quinn, Mexican-American actor
• June 4
• * King Dipendra of Nepal
• * John Hartford, American musician and composer
• June 7 – Víctor Paz Estenssoro, 52nd President of Bolivia
• June 10
• * Mike Mentzer, American bodybuilder
• * Leila Pahlavi, Iranian princess
• June 11 – Timothy McVeigh, American terrorist
• June 15 – Henri Alekan, French cinematographer
• June 17 – Donald J. Cram, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
• June 21
• * John Lee Hooker, American musician
• * Soad Hosny, Egyptian actress
• * Carroll O'Connor, American actor
• June 22 – Luis Carniglia, Argentine footballer and manager
• June 23 – Corinne Calvet, French actress
• June 27
• * Tove Jansson, Finnish author and illustrator
• * Jack Lemmon, American actor and director
• * Joan Sims, English actress
• June 28 – Mortimer J. Adler, American philosopher
• June 29 – Maximos V Hakim, Egyptian patriarch
• June 30
• * Chet Atkins, American guitarist and record producer
• * Joe Fagan, English footballer and manager
• * Joe Henderson, American jazz tenor saxophonist

  July

• July 1 – Nikolay Basov, Soviet physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• July 10 – Álvaro Magaña, 38th President of El Salvador
• July 11 – Herman Brood, Dutch musician
• July 21 – Sivaji Ganesan, Indian actor
• July 22 – Maria Gorokhovskaya, Soviet gymnast
• July 24 – Hiroshi Tsuburaya, Japanese actor
• July 26 – Josef Klaus, 16th Chancellor of Austria
• July 28 – Ahmed Sofa, Bengali writer
• July 29 – Edward Gierek, Polish politician
• July 31
• * Poul Anderson, American author
• * Francisco da Costa Gomes, President of Portugal

  August

• August 4 – Lorenzo Music, American actor, writer, producer, and musician
• August 6
• * Larry Adler, American musician
• * Jorge Amado, Brazilian writer
• * Dương Văn Minh, President of Vietnam
• * Wilhelm Mohnke, German general
• August 15 – Richard Chelimo, Kenyan athlete
• August 19 – Donald Woods, South African journalist and anti-apartheid activist
• August 20
• * Fred Hoyle, British astronomer and writer
• * Kim Stanley, American actress
• August 22 – Bernard Heuvelmans, Belgian-French cryptozoologist
• August 23 – Kathleen Freeman, American actress
• August 24 – Jane Greer, American actress
• August 25
• * Aaliyah, American singer and actress
• * Ken Tyrrell, British auto racing driver
• August 26 – Marita Petersen, 8th Prime Minister of Faroe Islands
• August 30
• * A. F. M. Ahsanuddin Chowdhury, 9th President of Bangladesh
• * Govan Mbeki - South African politician

  September

• September 2
• * Christiaan Barnard, South African cardiac surgeon
• * Troy Donahue, American actor
• September 3
• * Pauline Kael, American film critic
• * Thuy Trang, Vietnamese American actress
• * Ferruccio Amendola, Italian actor and voice actor
• September 9 – Ahmad Shah Massoud, Afghan military commander
• September 11 – 2,996 people who died in the September 11 attacks
• September 12 – Victor Wong, Chinese-American character actor
• September 13 – Charles Régnier, German actor, director, radio actor, and translator
• September 14 – Dorothy McGuire, American actress
• September 20 – Marcos Pérez Jiménez, 51st President of Venezuela
• September 22 – Isaac Stern, Ukrainian violinist
• September 29
• * Gloria Foster, American actress
• * Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, Vietnamese politician

  October

• October 5 – Mike Mansfield, American politician and diplomat
• October 9 – Herbert Ross, American actor, choreographer, director, and producer
• October 15 – Zhang Xueliang, Chinese military figure
• October 17
• * Micheline Ostermeyer, French athlete
• * Rehavam Ze'evi, Israeli general and politician
• October 22
• * Bertie Mee, English football player and coach
• * Georgy Vitsin, Soviet and Russian actor
• October 24 – Jaromil Jireš, Czechoslovak filmmaker
• October 26 – Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary, Queen consort of Iran
• October 28 - Richard Halsey Best, US Navy pilot

  November

• November – Justin Rakotoniaina, 3rd Prime Minister of Madagascar
• November 1 – Juan Bosch, President of the Dominican Republic
• November 3 – Sir Ernst Gombrich, Austrian-born art historian
• November 5
• * Gholam Reza Azhari, 73rd Prime Minister of Iran
• * Milton William Cooper, American author and radio host
• November 6 – Anthony Shaffer, English novelist and playwright
• November 9 – Giovanni Leone, 37th Prime Minister of Italy and 6th President of Italy
• November 10 – Ken Kesey, American author
• November 12 – Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, American-born Hindu guru
• November 14
• * Charlotte Coleman, English actress
• * Juan Carlos Lorenzo, Argentine footballer and coach
• November 22 – Mary Kay Ash, American businesswoman
• November 25 – Gohar Shahi, Pakistani spiritual leader
• November 29
• * George Harrison, English musician
• * John Mitchum, American actor

  December

• December 5 – Sir Peter Blake, New Zealand yachtsman
• December 8 – Betty Holberton, American computer scientist
• December 10 – Ashok Kumar, Indian actor
• December 12 – Josef Bican, Czech-Austrian footballer
• December 13
• * Chuck Schuldiner, American singer and guitarist
• * Rufus Thomas, American singer
• December 16 – Stuart Adamson, Scottish singer and guitarist
• December 20 – Léopold Sédar Senghor, first president of Senegal
• December 23 – Jelle Zijlstra, Dutch politician and economist, Prime Minister of the Netherlands
• December 26 – Sir Nigel Hawthorne, British actor
• December 31 – Eileen Heckart, American actress

  Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Eric Allin Cornell, Wolfgang Ketterle, and Carl Wieman
• Chemistry - William Standish Knowles, Ryōji Noyori, and Karl Barry Sharpless
• Medicine - Leland H. Hartwell, Tim Hunt, and Paul Nurse
• Literature - V. S. Naipaul
• Peace - United Nations, Kofi Annan
• Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel - George Akerlof, Michael Spence, and Joseph Stiglitz