01|A chartered Angolan plane bursts into flames, minutes after take-off, and crashes into dense jungle in Angola's diamond region, approximately 500 miles east of Luanda, the capital. All 48 people aboard the Russian-built Antonov 26 are killed, including the six Ukrainian crew members.|
02|U.S. Navy Captain William M. Shepherd and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev arrive at the International Space Station to launch what scientists describe as the first permanent human outpost in space. The astronauts are scheduled to remain at the $60-million station 250 miles (402 kilometers) above Earth for four months before being replaced by a second team. Officials with NASA describe habitation of the space station as the first step toward human colonization of space.|
02|A car bomb explodes near an outdoor market in central Jerusalem, killing two Israelis and injuring at least nine other people. The explosion occurs only hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat announced that they have agreed to a truce to end the violence between Palestinian protesters and Israeli troops in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.|
03|As many as 50,000 Angolans have crossed into Congo (Kinshasa) to escape heavy fighting between the Angolan army and rebel groups, reports the United Nations (UN) high commissioner for refugees. UN officials are attempting to transport emergency food supplies to the refugees, who are primarily moving into Congo's southern Bandundu Province. According to UN statistics, more than 500,000 refugees have settled into temporary camps in Congo. Most are Congolese driven from eastern Congo by the civil war that began in 1998.|
04|Tens of thousands of Filipinos fill the streets of Manila, capital of the Philippines, demanding the resignation of President Joseph Estrada, who is alleged to have received millions of dollars in kickbacks from illegal gambling operations. Estrada denies the charge. At least 50 prominent members of Estrada's party, including the Senate president and the House speaker, have declared themselves in favor of his impeachment.|
04|An oil tanker truck slams into a line of vehicles stopped at a police checkpoint in southwestern Nigeria, setting off an explosion and fire that consumes everything within a 1,500-feet (457-meter) radius. At least 96 people are killed.|
05|The body of the last emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, is buried with his ancestors in a crypt in Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, the capital. The service is attended by thousands of Ethiopians and Rastafarians, members of a religious group who venerate Haile Selassie as a god. Haile Selassie's rule was overthrown in 1974 by Marxist military officers, who kept the former emperor under house arrest until he died, under mysterious circumstances, in 1975. His body was discovered under a slab of concrete on the grounds of the former palace.|
06|The latest in a series of severe storms pounds Western Europe with heavy rains and high winds, killing six people and triggering massive flooding. Forty-five different areas of England and Wales are under severe flood warnings as the heavy rains leave vast areas of the countryside under water. In north Yorkshire, the city of York experiences its worst flooding in more than 350 years. In southeast France, along the Mediterranean coast, two men die in mudslides, and in Switzerland, heavy snow driven by winds clocked at 160 miles (257 kilometers) per hour buries whole villages.|
07|Returns are too close for either side to claim victory in the U.S. presidential election between Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic candidate, and Texas Governor George W. Bush, the Republican candidate. In Congressional contests, Republicans retain control of the House of Representatives by a slim margin.|
08|Vice President Al Gore, Democratic candidate for president, leads Texas Governor George W. Bush, Republican candidate, in the popular vote with a margin of approximately 97,000 votes. In Florida, Bush leads Gore by 1,784 votes, a margin of victory so close that state law mandates a recount. Without Florida's 25 electoral college votes, neither Gore nor Bush have the necessary 270 electoral votes to take the presidency.|
09|An Israeli helicopter flying over the West Bank fires missiles into a moving vehicle carrying a Palestinian paramilitary commander, killing him and his two female companions. The attack was the first in which Israel has specifically targeted a Palestinian military leader since the current violence began in the West Bank and Gaza in late September.|
09|Republican candidate for president George W. Bush leads Democratic candidate Al Gore by 327 votes at the conclusion of the Florida recount by machine, according to an unofficial tally by the Associated Press.|
10|The Zimbabwe Supreme Court declares the seizure of white-owned farm land by order of President Robert Mugabe illegal and instructs the government to evict black squatters from such land within 48 hours.|
11|At least 155 people, many of them children and young adults, are killed when a cable car on a funicular railroad catches fire inside a tunnel at Kaprun, Austria, an Alpine resort 37 miles (60 kilometers) south of Salzburg. The fire broke out in the driver's cabin at the rear of the car, which is pulled up a tunnel by cable some 13,000 feet (3,960 meters) to ski slopes atop Kitzsteinhorn Mountain.|
12|The George W. Bush campaign files an injunction in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to stop four Florida counties from hand counting votes from the November 7 presidential election. Bush leads Democratic candidate Al Gore in the Florida count by slighty more than 300 votes, according to some estimates. Speaking for the Bush campaign, former Secretary of State James Baker III notes that manual counting is subject to "human error. . ." The Democratic Party supports the recount by hand, rather than machine. Political experts believe the presidency hangs in the balance, because Florida's vote is virtually certain to tip the electoral tally in favor of either Bush or Gore.|
12|The 11 nations belonging to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will not increase production in order to cut the price of oil, announces Sheik Saud Nasser al-Sabah, oil minister of Kuwait. The price of oil is currently at a 10-year high. In March 2000, OPEC had agreed to automatically increase production by 500,000 barrels a day if the average price for crude were to exceed $28 a barrel for 20 consecutive trading days. According to the Kuwaiti oil minister, OPEC representatives plan to meet next in January 2001 to discuss cutting production, which would drive the price higher.|
13|U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks rules against a request made by the George W. Bush presidential campaign to stop four Florida counties from recounting ballots by hand from the November 7 presidential election. Officials with the Gore campaign announce that they would file an injunction to stall Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris from completing the certification of the vote in Florida. Harris declared earlier in the day that state law mandates that counties submit certified vote counts to officials in Tallahassee, the capital, by November 14 at 5 p.m. Absentee ballots from overseas must be submitted by November 18.|
13|President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines is impeached by the House of Representatives on charges that he took millions of dollars in bribes from illegal gambling interests.|
14|The government of France, attempting to combat public fears over mad cow disease, bans the sale of T-bone steaks and the use of suspect animal feed. Panic among shoppers over the spread of the disease in France drive orders for beef down 30 percent at provincial slaughterhouses and 50 percent at wholesale markets in Paris. The arrest of a French farmer attempting to sell a diseased cow in late October focused public attention on the fact that 99 cases of the disease had been identified in France during the first 10 months of 2000, compared with approximately 30 cases in 1999.|
15|Democrats charge that Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris's refusal to certify hand-recounted presidential election ballots from Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties is politically motivated. All three counties are heavily Democratic. Harris, a Republican, co-chaired Texas Governor George W. Bush's presidential campaign in Florida.|
16|The first high-speed train in the United States, the Acela Express, makes its maiden run from Washington, D.C., to New York City and on to Boston. Hitting 150 miles (240 kilometers) per hour, the train is the fastest in the Amtrak fleet. Amtrak is a semipublic corporation that operates intercity passenger trains in the United States.|
17|President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on a visit to Vietnam meet President Tran Duc Luong after being greeted by enormous crowds thronging the streets of Hanoi, the capital. Referring to the Vietnam War (1954-1975) in a public address, Clinton urges the people of Vietnam to set aside "a painful past" in order to concentrate on developing a "peaceful and prosperous future." Clinton is the first U.S. president to visit Vietnam since Richard Nixon made an unscheduled stop in South Vietnam in 1969.|
17|Police in Nairobi, Kenya, raid a local factory, attempting to find the source of home-brewed alcohol laced with methanol. Kenyan authorities believe the home brew has killed at least 113 people and hospitalized an additional 394 people in Nairobi alone.|
18|Absentee ballots from military personnel and other Floridians living overseas triple Texas Governor George W. Bush's lead in Florida to 930 votes. The count is official but uncertified by the state of Florida.|
19|The Basque separatist group ETA assumes responsibility for carrying out 17 terrorist attacks that resulted in the deaths of eight people, including a supreme court judge, in Spain between July and November. ETA demands sovereignty for the Basque people of northern Spain.|
19|Avalanches in the province of Tyrol in Austria kill four people who had ignored warnings and were skiing runs closed because of the danger of falling snow. The first avalanche, at Obergurgl, 215 miles (345 kilometers) west of Vienna, the capital, buried eight Germans, five of whom survived. In a second avalanche, at Goelbner, 260 miles (420 kilometers) southwest of Vienna, one of seven skiers died before being rescued.|
20|Israeli rockets bombard Palestinian military, police, and television facilities in Gaza, cutting electricity and plunging Gaza City into darkness. The attack was made in retaliation for the bombing, earlier in the day, of a school bus filled with children from Israeli settlements in the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip. The latest violence comes three days after Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat ordered an end to shooting attacks on Israelis.|
20|President Alberto Fujimori of Peru resigns his office in the face of mounting charges of corruption during his 10-year administration. The resignation follows on the heels of the resignations of his hand-picked successor, Second Vice President Ricardo Marquez, and the former intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos.|
20|The defense ministers of the 15 member nations of the European Union (EU) pledge troops and sufficient armaments and material to equip a standing army of 60,000 soldiers by 2003. International affairs experts see the move as the first step toward transforming the EU into a military power.|
21|The Florida Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, orders Florida's secretary of state to accept results of manually counted ballots from the November 7 presidential election. The decision is based on the "right of each voter to express his or her will in the context of our representative democracy." The court instructs the three counties in question, Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade, to submit results of the recount no later than the morning of November 27.|
22|Eleven people die in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza in violence between Israelis and Palestinians. In the coastal city of Hadera, a powerful car bomb explosion kills two Israelis and wounds dozens. Israeli soldiers shoot and kill nine Palestinians during the day, including four men at a road block in southern Gaza.|
22|Factory workers clog the streets of New Delhi, capital of India, protesting the Indian Supreme Court decision to clean up pollution in the state of Delhi by ordering the shut-down of those factories that are the worst polluters. Environmentalists consider New Delhi, which has a population of 14 million people, to be among the most polluted cities on earth. Government officials estimate that there may be as many as 90,000 factories, employing up to 1 million people, that would be affected by the court order.|
22|Election officials in Washington name Maria Cantwell the winner in the state's U.S. Senate election. Cantwell, the Democratic candidate, outpolled her opponent, Slade Gorton, the three-term Republican incumbent, by 1,953 votes out of the 2.5 million cast on November 7.|
23|The Florida Supreme Court refuses to compel Miami-Dade County to resume counting presidential election ballots by hand. The decision is a severe blow to Vice President Al Gore's campaign to overtake Texas Governor George W. Bush in the Florida presidential vote count. Gore had picked up 157 votes in Miami-Dade County before county officials stopped the recount, claiming it was impossible to finish on time. Bush leads Gore by approximately 930 votes in Florida's official results, which do not include manual recounts.|
24|An estimated 5.3 million people were infected with HIV, the virus the causes AIDS, in 2000, announce officials with the World Health Organization. In 2000, there were 36.1 million people worldwide living with HIV infection, and 3 million people died from the disease. Although 72 percent of all HIV infections occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, the rate of infection stabilized in Africa in 2000 for the first time since the disease was identified in 1981. The sharpest increase in infection occurred in Eastern Europe and central Asia, where the primary mode of transmission was through the sharing of needles by intravenous drug users.|
24|The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court agree to hear an appeal brought by Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush of a November 21 Florida Supreme Court ruling that Florida's secretary of state must accept the results of hand-counted ballots cast in the November 7 presidential election.|
25|An international conference meeting in the Netherlands on global warming ends with negotiations deadlocked over emission cuts. U.S. representatives refused to ratify a treaty, approved in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, that committed the United States and 35 other industrial nations to cutting emissions of greenhouse gases--mainly carbon dioxide from the use of gasoline and other fossil fuels--to below emissions levels of 1990. The United States, the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases, demanded that emission cuts should be moderated in those countries with large areas of forest and farm land because of the amount of carbon dioxide removed from the air by trees and other plants. EU countries with strong environmentalist movements, such as Germany, France, and Denmark, claimed that U.S. demands would result in greater harm to the environment.|
25|A fire in a towel factory in Narsinghdi, Bangladesh, 18 miles (29 kilometers) from Dhaka, the capital, kills 47 people. Officials note that management at the factory kept most doors locked, making it impossible for many of the employees to escape the fire.|
26|Texas Governor George W. Bush, speaking on television from his office in Austin, Texas, proclaims himself the winner of the November 7 presidential election. The announcement comes after Florida officials certified that Bush carried the state with a margin of 537 votes over his Democratic challenger, Vice President Al Gore. Gore's running mate, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, responded to the certification of the Florida vote totals by announcing that the Democrats planned to contest the results.|
27|Canada's Liberal Party takes 172 seats in Parliamentary elections, increasing the party's majority by 11 seats. The victory makes Prime Minister Jean Chretien Canada's first leader since World War II to win majorities in three consecutive elections. Chretien needed 151 of the 301 seats in Parliament to form a government.|
27|Attorneys for Vice President Al Gore file documents with the Circuit Court in Tallahassee, Florida, challenging Florida's presidential election results giving Texas Governor George W. Bush a 537-vote margin.|
28|Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak attempts to preempt his hard-line opponents in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, by calling for parliamentary elections in the spring of 2001. Political observers call the election a referendum on Barak's efforts to forge peace in the Middle East during the most violent Palestinian uprising in recent years.|
28|The Dutch parliament votes to legalize euthanasia, making the Netherlands the world's first nation to allow physician-assisted suicide. The new law, which goes into effect in 2001, permits physicians to administer drugs to end the lives of patients who are terminally ill and ask to die or are in unbearable pain and ask to die.|
29|A single-hull oil tanker owned by Marine Oil Trader 3 Ltd. of Liberia spills some 567,000 gallons (2,146 cubic meters) of oil into the Mississippi Delta, threatening shellfish beds and bird sanctuaries along the lower Mississippi River and closing 26 miles (42 kilometers) of a busy shipping lane. The tanker ran aground 42 miles (68 kilometers) southeast of New Orleans, Louisiana, after losing power when part of the engine exploded. State officials describe the spill as the worst in the United States since the <I>Exxon Valdez</I> dumped more than 10 million gallons (37,854 cubic meters) of oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska, in 1989.|
29|Unusually heavy monsoon rains trigger flooding and massive mudslides on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, killing at least 100 people and leaving some 100,000 people homeless.|
29|Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide wins Haiti's November 26 presidential election with more than 90 percent of the 2.6 million votes cast. First elected to the presidency in 1990, Aristide was driven from office by a military <I>coup</I> (overthrow) in 1991. He returned to office in 1994 after the United States sent troops to Haiti to force Haitian military leaders to restore a democratic government. Aristide left office in February 1996, because Haiti's constitution bans presidents from serving two consecutive terms.|
30|A Florida state legislative committee votes 8 to 5, strictly along party lines, to call the state Legislature into a special session for the purpose of choosing a slate for the December 18 Electoral College vote. Because the Florida House and Senate are dominated by Republicans, the Legislature would likely chose the slate of the Republican candidate, Governor George W. Bush of Texas. There is no precedent in modern U.S. history for a state legislature to elect an Electoral College slate. In all but two states, slates are determined in a winner-take-all contest based on which candidate takes the majority of votes in the popular election. Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic candidate for president, has contested the results of Florida's popular vote in the November 7 election. Neither Bush nor Gore can win the presidency without Florida's 25 Electoral College votes.|
30|More than 50 people, including many women and children, are burned alive in a fishing village across a lagoon from downtown Lagos, Nigeria, when a fractured fuel pipeline explodes. Most of the victims were near the pipeline collecting leaking gasoline to sell on the black market, but the explosion also kills a number of fishermen in dugout canoes on the lagoon. Villagers said the pipeline had been leaking for nearly two months. Officials estimate that thousands of poor Nigerians have died in the last two years while "scooping," the practice of puncturing and gathering fuel from pipelines.|
