2000
Related subjects: Years
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| 2000 : January · February · March · April · May · June · July · August · September · October · November · December |
| Millennium: | 2nd millennium |
|---|---|
| Centuries: | 19th century – 20th century – 21st century |
| Decades: | 1970s 1980s 1990s – 2000s – 2010s 2020s 2030s |
| Years: | 1997 1998 1999 – 2000 – 2001 2002 2003 |
| 2000 by topic: |
| Subject |
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| By country |
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| Leaders |
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| Birth and death categories |
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| Establishments and disestablishments categories |
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| Works and introductions categories |
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| Gregorian calendar | 2000 MM |
| Ab urbe condita | 2753 |
| Armenian calendar | 1449 ԹՎ ՌՆԽԹ |
| Assyrian calendar | 6750 |
| Bahá'í calendar | 156–157 |
| Bengali calendar | 1407 |
| Berber calendar | 2950 |
| British Regnal year | 48 Eliz. 2 – 49 Eliz. 2 |
| Buddhist calendar | 2544 |
| Burmese calendar | 1362 |
| Byzantine calendar | 7508–7509 |
| Chinese calendar | 己卯年十一月廿五日 (4636/4696-11-25) — to — 庚辰年十二月初六日(4637/4697-12-6) |
| Coptic calendar | 1716–1717 |
| Ethiopian calendar | 1992–1993 |
| Hebrew calendar | 5760–5761 |
| Hindu calendars | |
| - Vikram Samvat | 2056–2057 |
| - Shaka Samvat | 1922–1923 |
| - Kali Yuga | 5101–5102 |
| Holocene calendar | 12000 |
| Igbo calendar | |
| - Ǹrí Ìgbò | 1000–1001 |
| Iranian calendar | 1378–1379 |
| Islamic calendar | 1420–1421 |
| Japanese calendar | Heisei 12 (平成12年) |
| Juche calendar | 89 |
| Julian calendar | Gregorian minus 13 days |
| Korean calendar | 4333 |
| Minguo calendar | ROC 89 民國89年 |
| Thai solar calendar | 2543 |
| Unix time | 946684800–978307199 |
2000 (MM) was a century leap year that started on a Saturday, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. It was the 2000th year of the Common Era or the Anno Domini designation, and the last year of the 2nd millennium and the 20th century.
2000 was designated as:
- International Year for the Culture of Peace
- World Mathematical Year
The year 2000 was the first year of the 2000s decade. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, due to a tendency to group the years according to decimal values, as if year zero were counted. According to the Gregorian Calendar these distinctions fall to the year 2001, because the 1st century was retroactively said to start with year AD 1. Since the calendar has no year zero, its first millennium spans from years 1 to 1000, inclusively, and its second millennium from years 1001 to 2000. (See more at Millennium.)
The year 2000 was the subject of Y2K concerns: fears that computers would not shift from 1999 to 2000 correctly. However, by the end of 1999, many companies had already converted to new, or upgraded their existing software. Some even obtained Y2K certification. As a result of massive effort, much of it mis-directed, relatively few problems occurred.
Events
January
- January 1 – New Zealand broadcasting on Chatham Island is watched worldwide to start millennium celebrations.
- January 3– January 10 – Israel and Syria hold inconclusive peace talks.
- January 5– January 8 – The 2000 al-Qaeda Summit of several high-level al-Qaeda members (including 2 9/11 American Airlines hijackers) is held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
- January 6 – The last natural Pyrenean Ibex is found dead, apparently killed by a falling tree.
- January 10 – America Online announces an agreement to purchase Time Warner for $162 billion (the largest-ever corporate merger).
- January 11
- The armed wing of the Islamic Salvation Front concludes its negotiations with the government for an amnesty and disbands in Algeria (see Algerian Civil War#GIA destroyed, GSPC discontinues)
- The trawler Solway Harvester sinks off the Isle of Man.
- January 14
- A United Nations tribunal sentences 5 Bosnian Croats to up to 25 years in prison for the 1993 killing of over 100 Bosnian Muslims in a Bosnian village.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at 11,722.98 (at the peak of the Dot-com bubble).
- January 18 – The Tagish Lake meteorite impacts the Earth.
- January 24 – God's Army, a Karen militia group led by twins Johnny and Luther Htoo, takes 700 hostages at a Thai hospital near the Burmese border.
- January 30 – Kenya Airways Flight 431 crashes off the coast of Côte d'Ivoire into the Atlantic Ocean, killing 169.
- January 31
- Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crashes off the California coast into the Pacific Ocean, killing 88.
- Dr. Harold Shipman is found guilty of murdering 15 patients between 1995 and 1998 at Hyde, Greater Manchester, and sentenced to life imprisonment.
February
- February 4 – German extortionist Klaus-Peter Sabotta is jailed for life for attempted murder and extortion, in connection with the sabotage of German railway lines.
- February 6 – Tarja Halonen is elected the first female president of Finland.
- February 7 – Stipe Mesic is elected president of Croatia.
- February 8 – Bob Collins' plane collides with that of a student pilot over Zion, Illinois.
- February 9 – Torrential rains in Africa lead to the worst flooding in Mozambique in 50 years, which lasts until March and kills 800 people.
- February 13 – The final original Peanuts comic strip is published, following the death of its creator, Charles M. Schulz.
- February 21 – UNESCO holds the inaugural celebration of International Mother Language Day.
March
- March 1 – The Constitution of Finland rewritten.
- March 4 – The PlayStation 2 is released in Japan and North America. Several months later it becomes the best-selling game console of all time.
- March 8 – Tokyo train disaster: A sideswipe collision of 2 Tokyo Metro trains kills 5 people.
- March 10 – The NASDAQ Composite Index reaches an all-time high of 5,048.
- March 12 – Pope John Paul II apologizes for the wrongdoings by members of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the ages.
- March 21
- Pope John Paul II begins the first official visit by a Roman Catholic pontiff to Israel.
- The U.S. Supreme Court rules the FDA lacks authority to regulate tobacco as an addictive drug, throwing out the Clinton Administration's main anti-smoking initiative
- March 26
- Vladimir Putin is elected President of Russia.
- The Seattle Kingdome is demolished by implosion.
- March 27 – The Phillips explosion of 2000 kills 1 and injures 71 in Pasadena, Texas.
April
- April 3 – United States v. Microsoft: Microsoft is ruled to have violated United States antitrust laws by keeping "an oppressive thumb" on its competitors.
- April 17 – Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin becomes Raja of Perlis.
- April 22 – In a predawn raid, federal agents seize 6-year old Elián González from his relatives' home in Miami, Florida and fly him to his Cuban father in Washington, DC, ending one of the most publicized custody battles in U.S. history.
May
- May 1 – A new class of composite material is fabricated, which has a combination of physical properties never before seen in a natural or man-made material.
- May 3 – In San Antonio, Texas, computer pioneer Datapoint files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
- May 4
- After originating in the Philippines, the ILOVEYOU computer virus spreads quickly throughout the world.
- An earthquake hits Banggai, Indonesia, leaving 54 dead.
- May 5 – A rare conjunction of 7 celestial bodies (Sun, Moon, planets Mercury–Saturn) occurs during the New Moon.
- May 11
- May 12 – The Tate Modern Gallery opens in London.
- May 13
- A fireworks factory disaster in Enschede, the Netherlands, kills 23.
- Millennium Force opens at Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio as the world's tallest and fastest roller coaster.
- May 16 – The Grand National Assembly of Turkey elects Ahmet Necdet Sezer as the tenth President of Turkey.
- May 17 – A bomb in Glorietta Mall in Makati City, Philippines injures 13.
- May 20 – Taiwanese (ROC) president Chen Shui-bian makes the Four Noes and One Without pledge to Taiwan.
- May 25 – Israel withdraws IDF forces from southern Lebanon after 22 years.
June
- June 4 – An earthquake hits Bengkulu, Indonesia, leaving 94 dead.
- June 5 – 405 The Movie, the first short film widely distributed on the Internet, is released.
- June 13 – South Korean President Kim Dae Jung visits North Korea to participate in the first North-South presidential summit.
- June 17 – A centennial earthquake (6.5 on Richter scale) hits Iceland on its national day.
- June 21 – Section 28, a law preventing the promotion of homosexuality, is repealed by the Scottish Parliament.
- June 26 – A preliminary draft of genomes, as part of the Human Genome Project, is finished.
- June 28 – Elian Gonzalez returns to Cuba with his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, ending a protracted custody battle.
- June 30 – At the Roskilde Festival near Copenhagen, Denmark, 9 die and 26 are injured on a set while the rock group Pearl Jam performs.
July
- July 2
- France defeats Italy 2-1 after extra time in the final of the European Championships, becoming the first team to consecutively win the World Cup and European Championships.
- Vicente Fox is elected President of Mexico, as candidate of the rightist PAN (National Action Party), ending 71 years of PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) rule.
- July 10
- In southern Nigeria, a leaking petroleum pipeline explodes, killing about 250 villagers who were scavenging gasoline.
- Bashar al-Assad is confirmed as Syria's leader in a national referendum.
- July 13– July 25 – Israel's prime minister Ehud Barak and PLO head Yasser Arafat meet at Camp David, but fail to reach an agreement.
- July 14 – A powerful solar flare, later named the Bastille Day event, causes a geomagnetic storm on Earth.
- July 18 – Alex Salmond resigns as the leader of the Scottish National Party.
- July 21– July 23 – G-8 Nations hold their 26th Annual Summit; issues include AIDS, the 'digital divide', and halving world poverty by 2015.
- July 22 – News of the World urges its readers to sign a petition for Sarah's Law, new legislation in response to the murder of Sarah Payne, which would give parents the right to know whether a convicted paedophile was living in their area.
- July 25 – Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde aircraft, crashes into a hotel in Gonesse just after takeoff from Paris, killing all 109 aboard and 4 in the hotel.
- July 30 – Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez is reelected with 59% of the vote.
- July 31- August 3 – The Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania nominates George W. Bush for U.S. President and Dick Cheney for Vice President.
August
- August 3 – Rioting erupts on the Paulsgrove estate in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, after more than 100 people besiege the home of a block of flats allegedly housing a convicted paedophile. This is the latest vigilante violence against suspected sex offenders since the beginning of the " naming and shaming" anti-paedophile campaign by the tabloid newspaper News of the World.
- August 8 – The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley is raised to the surface after 136 years on the ocean floor.
- August 12 – The Russian submarine Kursk sinks in the Barents Sea, resulting in the deaths of all 118 men on board.
- August 14
- Tsar Nicholas II and his family are canonized by the synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.
- Dora the Explorer, one of Nickelodeon's most popular shows, debuts.
- August 14– August 17 – The Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles nominates U.S. Vice President Al Gore for President and Senator Joe Lieberman for Vice President.
- August 23 – John Anthony Kaiser, a Roman Catholic priest, was murdered in Morendat, Kenya.
- August 27 – The Ostankino Tower fire in Moscow kills 3.
September
- September 5 – Tuvalu joins the United Nations.
- September 6 – The last wholly Swedish-owned arms manufacturer, Bofors, is sold to American arms manufacturer United Defense.
- September 6– September 8 – World leaders attend the Millennium Summit at UN Headquarters.
- September 7– September 14 – The UK fuel protests take place, with refineries blockaded, and supply to the country's network of petrol stations halted.
- September 8
- Albania officially joins the World Trade Organization.
- United Nations Millennium Declaration is made in New York
- September 15– October 1 – The 2000 Summer Olympics are held in Sydney, Australia.
- September 16
- Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze is last seen alive; this day is taken as the commemoration date of his death.
- Peru's president Alberto Fujimori calls for new elections in which he will not run.
- September 26
- The Greek ferry Express Samina sinks off the coast of the island of Paros; 80 out of a total of over 500 passengers perish in one of Greece's worst sea disasters.
- Anti-globalization protests in Prague (some 15,000 protesters) turn violent during the IMF and World Bank summits.
- September 28 – Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visits the Temple Mount, protected by a several-hundred-strong Israeli police force. Palestinian riots erupt, leading to a full-fledged armed uprising (called the Al-Aqsa Intifada by sympathizers and the Oslo War by opponents).
- September 29 – The Long Kesh prison in Northern Ireland is closed.
October
- October 1 – The 2000 Summer Olympics close in Sydney, Australia.
- October 5 – President Slobodan Milošević leaves office after widespread demonstrations throughout Serbia.
- October 6 – The last Mini is produced in Longbridge.
- October 11
- Jim Wallace becomes Acting First Minister of Scotland.
- 250 million US gallons (950,000 m3) of coal sludge spill in Martin County, Kentucky (considered a greater environmental disaster than the Exxon Valdez oil spill).
- October 12 – In Aden, Yemen, USS Cole is badly damaged by two Al-Qaeda suicide bombers, who place a small boat laden with explosives alongside the United States Navy destroyer, killing 17 crew members and wounding at least 39.
- October 21 – Fifteen Arab leaders convene in Cairo, Egypt, for their first summit in 4 years; the Libyan delegation walks out, angry over signs the summit will stop short of calling for breaking ties with Israel.
- October 22 – The Mainichi Shinbun newspaper exposes Japanese archeologist Shinichi Fujimura as a fraud; Japanese archaeologists had based their treatises on his findings.
- October 23 – Madeleine Albright holds talks with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il.
- October 26 – Pakistani authorities announce that their police have found an apparently ancient mummy of a Persian princess in the province of Balochistan. Iran, Pakistan and the Taliban all claim the mummy until Pakistan announces it is a modern-day fake on April 17, 2001.
- October 27
- Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).
- Henry McLeish becomes First Minister of Scotland.
- October 30 – This is the final date during which there is no human presence in space; on October 31, Soyuz TM-31 launches, carrying the first resident crew to the International Space Station. The ISS has been continuously crewed since.
- October 31 – Singapore Airlines Flight 006 collides with construction equipment in the Chiang Kai Shek International Airport, resulting in 83 deaths.
November
- November – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq rejects new U.N. Security Council weapons inspections proposals.
- November 2 – The first resident crew enters the International Space Station.
- November 3 – Widespread flooding occurs throughout England and Wales after days of heavy rain.
- November 7:
- In London, a criminal gang raids the Millennium Dome to steal the Millennium Star diamond, but police surveillance catches them in the act.
- Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected to the United States Senate, becoming the first First Lady of the United States to win public office.
- November 11 – Kaprun disaster, Austria: A funicular fire in an Alpine tunnel kills 155 skiers and snowboarders.
- November 15 – A new Indian state called Jharkhand is formed, carving out the South Chhota Nagpur area from Bihar in India.
- November 16 – Bill Clinton becomes the first sitting U.S. President to visit Vietnam.
- November 17
- November 27 – Jean Chrétien is re-elected as Prime Minister of Canada, as the Liberal Party of Canada increases its majority in the House of Commons of Canada.
- November 28 – Ukrainian politician Oleksander Moroz touches off the Cassette Scandal by publicly accusing President Leonid Kuchma of involvement in the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze.
December
- December 1 – Vicente Fox takes office as President of Mexico.
- December 12 – Bush v. Gore: The U.S. Supreme Court stops the Florida presidential recount, effectively giving the state, and the Presidency, to George W. Bush.
- December 15
- Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel opens at the Disneyland Resort.
- The third and final reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is shut down and the station is shut down completely.
- December 24 – Christmas Eve 2000 Indonesia bombings: 18 people are killed in multiple Islamist bomb attacks on churches across Indonesia.
- December 25 – A shopping centre fire at Luoyang, Henan, China, kills 309.
- December 30 – Rizal Day bombings: A series of bombs explode in various places in Metro Manila, Philippines, within a span of a few hours, killing 22 and injuring about 100.
- December 31 – The Millennium Dome closes its doors one year to the day of its opening.
World population
| World population | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 1995 | 2005 | |||||
| World | 6,070,581,000 | 5,674,380,000 | +396,201,000 | +6,98% | 6,453,628,000 | +383,047,000 | +6,31% |
| Africa | 795,671,000 | 707,462,000 | +88,209,000 | +12,47% | 887,964,000 | +92,293,000 | +11,60% |
| Asia | 3,679,737,000 | 3,430,052,000 | +249,685,000 | +7,28% | 3,917,508,000 | +237,771,000 | +6,46% |
| Europe | 727,986,000 | 727,405,000 | +581,000 | +0,08% | 724,722,000 | -3,264,000 | -0,45% |
| Latin America | 520,229,000 | 481,099,000 | +39,130,000 | +8,13% | 558,281,000 | +38,052,000 | +7,31% |
| Northern America | 315,915,000 | 299,438,000 | +16,477,000 | +5,50% | 332,156,000 | +16,241,000 | +5,14% |
| Oceania | 31,043,000 | 28,924,000 | +2,119,000 | +7,33% | 32,998,000 | +1,955,000 | +6,30% |
Deaths
January
- January 2 – Patrick O'Brian, English writer (b. 1914)
- January 15 – Željko Ražnatović, Serbian mobster and paramilitary leader (b. 1952)
- January 18 – Frances Drake, American actress (b. 1912)
- January 19
February
- February 5
- February 7
- February 8
- February 9 – Beau Jack, American boxer (b. 1921)
- February 10 – Jim Varney, American actor noted for his character, Ernest P. Worrell. (b. 1949)
- February 11 – Roger Vadim, French film director and producer (b. 1928)
- February 12
- February 13 – Anders Aalborg, Canadian politician (b. 1914)
- February 19 – Friedensreich Hundertwasser, artist (b. 1928)
- February 23
March
- March 3 – Toni Ortelli, Italian composer and alpinist (b. 1904)
- March 7 – Charles Gray, English actor (b. 1928)
- March 11 – Alfred Schwarzmann, German Olympic gymnast (b. 1912)
- March 27 – Ian Dury, English singer, songwriter (b. 1942)
- March 28 – Anthony Powell, British author (b. 1905)
- March 30 – Rudolf Kirchschlager, former President of Austria (b. 1915)
April
- April 2 – Tommaso Buscetta, Sicilian mafioso informant (b. 1928)
- April 3 – Terence McKenna, Writer, Philosopher, Ethnobotanist and Shaman (b. 1946)
- April 4 – Derek Allhusen, British equestrian (b. 1914)
- April 5 – Lee Petty, American race car driver (b. 1914)
- April 6 – Habib Bourguiba, Tunisian politician, 1st President of Tunisia (b. 1903)
- April 10 – Rabah Bitat, former President of Algeria (b. 1925)
- April 11 – Diana Darvey, British actress, singer and dancer (b. 1945)
- April 14 – Phil Katz, American computer programmer (b. 1962)
- April 15 – Edward Gorey, American writer and illustrator (b. 1925)
- April 25 – David Merrick, American stage producer (b. 1911)
- April 29 – Phạm Văn Đồng, Vietnamese politician, Prime Minister of Vietnam (b. 1906)
May
- May 1
- May 7 – Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., American actor (b. 1909)
- May 8 – Maria Do Carmo Geronimo, The last Brazilian slave and claimed to be 129 before she died (b. 1871)
- May 10 – Craig Stevens, American actor (b. 1918)
- May 11 – René Muñoz, Cuban actor, screenwriter of telenovelas and the cinema of Mexico (b. 1938)
- May 12 – Adam Petty, NASCAR Driver (b.1980)
- May 13 – Tomomi Tsuruta, Former Japanese professional wrestler, better known as Jumbo Tsuruta (b. 1951)
- May 14 – Keizō Obuchi, Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1937)
- May 20 – Edward Bernds, American director (b. 1905)
- May 21
- May 27
- May 30 – Doris Hare, English actress, well known for her role in the 1970s comedy, On the Buses (b. 1905)
- May 31 – Tito Puente, American jazz musician (b. 1923)
June
- June 10
- June 14 – Robert Trent Jones, English-born golf course designer (b. 1906)
- June 16 – Empress Kōjun of Japan (b. 1903)
- June 17 – Ismail Mahomed, South African and Namibian Chief Justice (b. 1931)
- June 19 – Noboru Takeshita, former Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1924)
- June 21 – Alan Hovhaness, American composer (b. 1911)
- June 24 – David Tomlinson, English actor (b. 1917)
- June 27 – Pierre Pflimlin, French Politician (b. 1907)
- June 29 – Vittorio Gassman, Italian actor (b. 1922)
July
- July 1 – Walter Matthau, American actor (b. 1920)
- July 6 – Lazar Koliševski, 2nd President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia (b. 1914)
- July 7 – James C. Quayle, American newspaper publisher (b. 1921)
- July 8 – FM-2030, Transhumanist philosopher (b. 1930)
- July 10
- July 11 – Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1921)
- July 12 – Charles Merritt, Canadian Army officer and recipient of the Victoria Cross during World War II (b. 1908)
- July 21 – Yosef Qafiḥ, Israeli rabbi Yemenite Jewish (b. 1917)
- July 28 – Abraham Pais, Dutch-born American physicist (b. 1918)
- July 29 – René Favaloro, Argentinian cardiologist who created the technique for coronary bypass surgery (b. 1923)
August
- August 5
- August 6 – Sir Robin Day, British political broadcaster (b. 1923)
- August 9 – John Harsanyi, Hungarian-born economist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1920)
- August 12
- August 19 – Bineshwar Brahma, Bodo activist and leader (b. 1946)
- August 21 – Daniel Lisulo, Zambian politician (b. 1930)
- August 25 – Carl Barks, American cartoonist (b. 1901)
- August 26 – Bunny Austin, English tennis player (b. 1906)
September
- September 2
- September 14 – Beah Richards, American actress (b. 1920)
- September 16 – Georgiy Gongadze, Ukrainian journalist (b. 1969)
- September 19 – Anthony Robert Klitz, British artist (b 1917)
- September 22 – Saburō Sakai, Japanese fighter ace (b. 1916)
- September 25 – R. S. Thomas, Welsh poet (b. 1913)
- September 26 – Richard Mulligan, American actor (b. 1932)
- September 27 – Sammy Luftspring, Canadian boxer (b. 1916)
- September 28
October
- October 3 – Benjamin Orr, American singer-songwriter, guitarist and singer for the band The Cars (b. 1947)
- October 4 – Michael Smith, English-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1932)
- October 6 – Richard Farnsworth, American actor (b. 1920)
- October 8 – Sheila Holland (Sheila Coates, Charlotte Lamb, Sheila Lancaster, Victoria Wolf, Laura Hardy), English writer (b. 1937)
- October 9 – Patrick Anthony Porteous, Scottish recipient of the Victoria Cross (b. 1918)
- October 13
- October 15 – Konrad Emil Bloch, German-born biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1912)
- October 18 – Julie London, American singer and actress (b. 1926)
- October 21 – Reginald Kray, leading figure in organised crime in London, UK (b. 1933)
- October 23 – Rodney Anoa'i, American wrestler known as Yokozuna (b. 1966)
- October 27 – Walter Berry, Austrian bass-baritone (b. 1929)
- October 29 – Andújar Cedeño, Dominican Major League Baseball player for the Houston Astros (b. 1969)
- October 30 – Steve Allen, American comedian, composer, talk show host, and author (b. 1921)
- October 31 – Ring Lardner, Jr., American screenwriter, one of the Hollywood Ten (b. 1915)
November
- November 2 – Eva Morris, last surviving person documented as born in 1885 (b. 1885)
- November 5
- November 6 – L. Sprague de Camp, American writer (b. 1907)
- November 7
- November 11 – Hugh Paddick, British actor (b. 1915)
- November 22
December
- December 2 – Gail Fisher, American actress (b. 1935)
- December 3 – Gwendolyn Brooks, African American writer (b. 1917)
- December 10
- December 19 – Roebuck "Pops" Staples, patriarch of The Staple Singers (b. 1914)
- December 18 – Kirsty MacColl, English singer (b. 1959)
- December 23
- December 26 – Jason Robards, American actor (b. 1922)
- December 30 – Julius J. Epstein, American screenwriter (b. 1909)
Nobel Prizes
- Chemistry – Alan J. Heeger, Alan MacDiarmid, Hideki Shirakawa
- Economics – James Heckman, Daniel McFadden
- Literature – Gao Xingjian
- Peace – Kim Dae Jung
- Physics – Zhores Ivanovich Alferov, Herbert Kroemer, Jack Kilby
- Physiology or Medicine – Arvid Carlsson, Paul Greengard, Eric R. Kandel
