01|Queen Margrethe of Denmark and King Carl XVI of Sweden officially open a 10-mile (16-kilometer), $3.7-billion bridge and tunnel that link the two countries. The bridge allows motorists to drive between Copenhagen, the Danish capital, and Malmo, Sweden, a trip that takes approximately 20 minutes.|
02|Vicente Fox Quesada, candidate of the National Action Party, takes 43 percent of the vote in the Mexican presidential election, defeating Francisco Labastida Ochoa of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The victory ends 71 years of PRI rule. Political experts in Mexico attribute Fox's victory to low workers' pay and years of PRI scandals.|
02|Rebels in Chechnya launch a series of suicide bomb attacks on Russian troops that kill at least 37 soldiers. Five trucks laden with explosives and driven by Chechen rebels blow up in towns and cities that were officially declared under Russian control. The latest violence comes one week after the Russian military announced that the rebellion in Chechnya was all but over.|
03|Leaders of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), meeting in Gaza in the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip, decide that the Palestinian Central Council will proclaim the existence of a Palestinian state by mid-September regardless of whether a permanent peace is arranged with Israel. The move backs Yasir Arafat's statement that the Palestinians reserve the right to declare statehood unilaterally if a peace accord has not been reached by September 13, the date the Israelis and Palestinians have targeted for the agreement.|
04|Hundreds of forest fires burn out of control in southeastern Europe and are particularly widespread in Croatia and Italy. Forestry officials blame the fires on high temperatures, which have reached up to 120 degrees F (49 degrees C) in Greece and Italy, and on lack of rain. In the Balkans, the worst drought in 50 years had already severely damaged crops. Meteorologists attribute the heat and lack of rain to hot air masses flowing north from Africa's Sahara desert.|
05|The prison population in California declines for the first time in more than 20 years, according to officials with the California Department of Corrections. The inmate population statewide was 161,401 in June 2000 compared with 161,041 in June 1999. Though the decline is small, some state legislators considered cutting funds for new prisons. Between 1980 and 2000, California spent $5.6 billion on prison construction. In the mid-1990's, the state spent more money on prisons than on its college and university system.|
06|A police officer is killed and some 140 villagers and police personnel are injured in a riot in China's drought-stricken Shandong Province. The disturbance began when local officials launched repairs on a reservoir that would have cut local residents' access to drinking and irrigation water.|
07|A missile interceptor, launched from a Pacific island by the United States to test a prototype national missile defense system, fails to separate from its booster rocket. Officials blame the failure on a minor mechanical malfunction. The test, which cost $100 million, is the second of three trials in which the defense system, which the Army estimates will cost $30 billion to $60 billion, failed to intercept its target.|
08|Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, informs the assembled houses of parliament that the national economy of Russia is a "house of cards supported by high oil prices," a situation that is pushing Russia into the "group of Third World countries." During the 50-minute state-of-the-nation address, Putin lashes out at the Russian people for their failure to obey laws and pay taxes, and he asks parliament to ratify his plan to concentrate power in the Kremlin.|
08|Venus Williams of the United States wins the women's singles title at Wimbledon with a 6-3, 7-6 (3) final victory over Lindsay Davenport at the All England Club. The championship makes Williams and her sister, Serena, the first sisters in tennis history to have each captured a Grand Slam title. Serena Williams won the U.S. Open in 1999.|
09|Pete Sampras of the United States beats Patrick Rafter of Australia 6-7 (10), 7-6 (5), 6-4, 6-2, making tennis history by winning his seventh Wimbledon championship and the thirteenth Grand Slam title of his career.|
09|A British Army brigade in Northern Ireland halts an estimated 3,000 Protestant militants, members of the Orange Order, from marching in a Roman Catholic area of Portadown. The blockade sets off violent protests and repeated clashes. In nearby Stewartstown, a car bomb detonates outside a police station, wounding a police officer in the leg. Dissidents with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) claim responsibility for the bombing, one of dozens of such attacks since the "marching season" began on July 2. Many pro-British loyalists march or parade during July to commemorate historic Protestant victories over Catholics.|
10|Ezer Weizman resigns as president of Israel, ending a career that spanned the entire history of Israel. The resignation comes in response to a state prosecutor's report criticizing Weizman for accepting more than $300,000 in cash from private sources between 1985 and 1993. Before becoming president in 1993, Weizman commanded the Israeli air force, served as national defense minister, and helped fashion the 1978 Camp David peace accords.|
10|As many as 250 people are killed when gasoline in a ruptured pipeline near Abuja in Nigeria's Niger Delta explodes, destroying buildings and crops within a 1-mile (1.6-kilometer) radius. Most of the victims, many of them children, were attempting to scavenge fuel from the punctured pipe.|
10|Two days after Venus Williams of the United States captured the women's singles title, Williams and her sister Serena take the women's doubles championship at Wimbledon by beating Ai Sugiyama of Japan and Julie Halard-Decugis of France, 6-3, 6-2.|
11|A mountain of garbage near the Philippine capital of Manila collapses and bursts into flames, killing at least 200 people. According to Philippine officials, heavy rains from a typhoon loosened the huge pile, where an estimated 80,000 people live as scavengers.|
11|Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat meet with U.S. President Bill Clinton at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, to begin extensive negotiations over "final status" issues of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. These include Palestinian statehood; how much land in Gaza and the West Bank Israel will turn over to the Palestinians; and the future status of Jerusalem, which both sides claim as their capital.|
12|More than 80,000 members of the Orange Order, a fraternal organization that seeks to keep Protestants in power in Northern Ireland and maintain union with Great Britain, march through Northern Ireland's capital, Belfast, and 17 other towns, demanding the right to parade in hostile Roman Catholic areas. British security forces have blocked such parades for several years in an attempt to avoid civil disorder and violence between Protestants and Catholics. Protestant hard-liners celebrate July 12 to commemorate the 1690 Battle of Boyne in which the Protestant William III of England defeated the forces of the Catholic James II.|
12|Russia launches the Zvezda module, the future living quarters of the new international space station. Lifted by a mammoth Proton-K rocket from the plain of Kazakhstan, Zvezda is the fifth piece of the station to go into space. Engineers believe at least 47 additional launches will be necessary to complete the multi-billion dollar station. The Zvezda launch was two years behind schedule, primarily because of technical and financial problems.|
13|The Great Council of Chiefs, the traditional Fijian governing body, appoints Raty Josefa Iloilo president after rebels release former premier Mahendra Chaudhry and the 17 remaining hostages who were held in the nation's parliament building for nearly two months. The leader of the rebels, George Speight, selected Iloilo for the presidency. Armed rebels seized control of four Fijian resorts on July 12 and 13, prompting the United States Department of State to issue a warning to U.S. citizens not to travel to Fiji.|
13|Bill Bradley, the former U.S. Senator from New Jersey who challenged Vice President Al Gore in the primaries for the Democratic nomination for president, gives Gore a rousing endorsement at a political rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Bradley offers to help in the presidential campaign, quoting legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, "Winning is a team sport." Bradley, who failed to win a single state in his primary battle against Gore, cited the vice president's leadership and understanding of technology in an era of rapid technological change.|
14|A tornado with winds of some 200 miles (322 kilometers) per hour sweeps through a campground between Edmonton and Calgary, Canada, killing 11 people and injuring more than 130 others. At least 70 recreational vehicles are blown into Pine Lake.|
15|United Nations (UN) solders in Sierra Leone rescue 222 UN peacekeepers and 11 military observers held hostage by Revolutionary United Front rebels for more than two months. The peacekeepers are released from a UN base located 200 miles (322 kilometers) east of the capital, Freetown. The Revolutionary United Front, which is led by Foday Sankoh, reignited Sierra Leone's nine-year civil war on May 4 by launching attacks on several towns and seizing more than 500 UN hostages.|
16|At least 30 villagers are killed near Warri in southern Nigeria when a ruptured pipeline explodes. Eyewitnesses said the villagers were scooping up gushing gasoline after puncturing the pipeline. A similar accident, which occurred just 5 miles (8 kilometers) from Warri, killed 250 people on July 10.|
16|More than 1 million gallons (3.8 million liters) of crude oil spills from a state-owned refinery into Brazil's Barigui River in the state of Parana. The spill endangers drinking water, farmland, and animal life along a 140-mile (224-kilometer) stretch of the river, which is a tributary of the Iguacu River.|
17|Bashar al-Assad is sworn in as president of Syria, replacing his father, Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria from 1971 until his death on June 10, 2000.|
17|An Alliance Air jet, owned by the Indian government, crashes into a housing complex in Patna, the capital of the Indian state of Bihar, killing 51 people aboard the Boeing 737-200 and 5 people on the ground.|
18|U.S. President Bill Clinton postpones departing for Japan in order to remain in negotiations with Israeli President Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat on the "final status" issues of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The president is scheduled to attend an economic summit in Japan of the Group of Eight (G-8) nations (the eight wealthiest nations).|
19|The United States offers the countries of sub-Saharan Africa $1 billion in loans annually to finance the purchase of AIDS drugs from U.S. companies, announce officials with the United States Export-Import Bank in Washington, D.C. The loans substantially increase the amount of money available to combat the disease in an area where as many as 50 million people are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. United Nations officials, however, estimate that AIDS funding to African nations needs to increase by 300 percent, to $3 billion annually, before significant progress can be made in prevention and care.|
19|The Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, grants President Vladimir Putin far-ranging power to strengthen central control over regional governments. The legislation gives Putin the right to dismiss regional governors and disband local legislatures.|
20|Nationalist politicians on Corsica accept a French offer that grants autonomy (self-government) to the island in exchange for ending 20 years of separatist violence.|
21|The existence of tau neutrinos, a building block of matter that scientists theorized existed, is verified at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago, announces a team of 54 physicists from the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Greece. The physicists used the Fermi Tevatron, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, to detect the elusive particle. Neutrinos pass through most matter without leaving a trace.|
21|An estimated 27,000 people form an 11-mile- (18-kilometer-) long human chain around Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, Japan, to protest the continuing presence of the U.S. military on the island. Kadena is the largest U.S. military base in Asia. Leaders of the G-8 nations (the world's eight wealthiest nations) are attending an annual meeting on Okinawa, a Japanese island that remained under the control of the U.S. military from 1945 until 1972.|
22|Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India finances the creation of a National Population Stabilization Fund to promote family planning with $22.5 million in state funds. India's population of 1 billion people, which is second only to China's, tripled between 1947, the year India gained independence, and 1999. Experts in population growth warn that if the current growth rate does not slow, India will become the world's most populous nation by 2045.|
23|Tiger Woods wins the 129th British Open, played at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland, by eight strokes. The victory places Woods alongside Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, and Jack Nicklaus as golf's only players to have captured a career Grand Slam--the Masters, the United States Open, the British Open, and the P.G.A. Championship. At 23, Woods is also the youngest player to have completed a career Grand Slam.|
23|U.S. cyclist Lance Armstrong takes his second consecutive Tour de France bicycle race, winning by 6 minutes and 2 seconds.|
24|The Yugoslav parliament passes new election procedures making it legal for a president to run for a second four-year term and to be elected by a simple majority in a popular vote. Both laws are designed to keep President Slobodan Milosevic in power. Before being elected president of Yugoslavia in 1997, Milosevic served two terms as president of Serbia, one of the two republics making up Yugoslavia. In 1999, the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague branded Milosevic as war criminal.|
25|The Camp David summit, which began on July 11, ends with no agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians, according to a spokesperson representing U.S. President Bill Clinton. The president called off the talks after concluding that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat could not come to an agreement. While expressing regret at the failure of the summit, President Clinton notes that "significant progress" had been made on core issues. According to a member of the Israeli delegation, the negotiations deadlocked over the division of Jerusalem, which both sides claim as their capital.|
25|An Air France Concorde en route to New York City crashes into a hotel outside Paris shortly after take-off from Charles de Gaulle airport, killing all 109 people aboard the charter flight and 4 people in the hotel. Reuters/Archive Photos|
25|Texas Governor George W. Bush, the presumptive Republican candidate for president, announces that he has chosen former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney to be his running mate in the 2000 election. Cheney represented Wyoming in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1979 to 1989 before serving as secretary of defense during the George H. W. Bush Administration.|
26|The military government of Fiji seizes George Speight, who toppled Fiji's legitimately elected government, and dozens of his followers after storming their stronghold in a suburb of Suva, Fiji's capital. At least 30 rebels were wounded in the melee. On May 19, Speight led a band of armed rebels into Fiji's parliament and took the prime minister, his cabinet, and dozens of lawmakers hostage. In the resulting chaos, the military assumed control and met Speight's demands to scrap the constitution and oust Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry's government.|
27|Thousands of Indonesians march through the streets of Jakarta, the capital, chanting "Hang Suharto" to protest a claim made by the former president's lawyers that he is too brain damaged to stand trial on charges of corruption. Suharto, who is 79 years old and has suffered strokes, has been under house arrest in his own Jakarta residence for nearly two months. He was charged on July 26 with skimming $157 million from charity funds during his 32 years in office. The trial is set to begin in August.|
28|Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori is inaugurated for a third five-year term amid wide-scale violence in the streets of Lima, the capital. Six people, all bystanders, are killed and hundreds are injured when rioters storm police barricades. Several government buildings in Lima's colonial center, including the Education Ministry and National Bank, are vandalized and set on fire. The riots were sparked by demonstrators against Fujimori, who many Peruvians believe was reelected in a fraudulent election.|
29|The Clinton Administration issues a statement notifying the U.S. Congress that federal payments to local governments to buy guns from private owners will continue, despite a House appropriations subcommittee order to halt the program. The $15-million program, Buyback America, was initiated to reduce gun violence in cities, particularly in public housing projects. In June, the chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee, James Welch (R., New York), ordered Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo to suspend the program because it was not authorized under existing laws. Opponents of gun control in Congress and the members of the National Rifle Association are highly critical of Buyback America, claiming that purchasing old guns is a waste of taxpayer money because it does not remove weapons from the hands of criminals.|
30|A wildfire, which has consumed 63,000 acres (25,495 hectares) of forest in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains since July 22, burns through the Sequoia National Forest in an area west of California Route 395, destroying a Boy Scout camp and houses in the town of Pine Creek. Officials with the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, blame the fire--one of 45 burning in 5 Western states--on dry lightning (lightening unaccompanied by rain) during hot dry weather that has left vegetation highly vulnerable to fire.|
31|Hugo Chavez is overwhelmingly reelected president of Venezuela with 59 percent of the vote. However, pro-Chavez parties take only 99 of 165 seats in the National Assembly, denying Chavez the absolute power he seeks to carry out his "peaceful social revolution" to reform the Venezuelan government and economy.|
31|The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, skips over Shimon Peres, an elder statesman and former prime minister, to elect Moshe Katsav, an obscure, right-wing politician, Israel's president. Political experts describe the 57-to-60 vote as a stunning defeat for Peres, a long-time advocate of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Peres was awarded the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the Oslo accords, which launched the peace process.|
