Timothy McVeigh is executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
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Tag Archives: 2001
23 March 2001
The Russian Mir space station is disposed of, breaking up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji.
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15 February 2001
19 December 2001
Argentine economic crisis: December riots: Riots erupt in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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15 December 2001
The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after 11 years and $27,000,000 spent to stabilize it, without fixing its famous lean.
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2 December 2001
Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
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11 October 2001
Polaroid files for federal bankruptcy protection.
The original Polaroid Corporation filed for federal bankruptcy protection on October 11, 2001. The outcome was that within ten months, most of the business including the “Polaroid” name itself and non-bankrupt foreign subsidiaries had been sold to Bank One’s One Equity Partners. OEP Imaging Corporation then changed its name to Polaroid Holding Company. However, this new company operates using the name of its bankrupt predecessor, Polaroid Corporation.
Significant criticism surrounded this “takeover” because the process left executives of the company with large bonuses, while stockholders, as well as current and retired employees, were left with nothing. The company announced a plan that gave the top 45 executives bonuses just for staying at their jobs. Meanwhile, other employees were restricted from selling their stock before leaving their jobs.
As part of the settlement, the original Polaroid Corporation changed its name to Primary PDC, Inc. Having sold its assets, it was now effectively nothing more than an administrative shell. Primary PDC received approximately 35 percent of the “new” Polaroid, which was to be distributed to its unsecured creditors including bondholders. As of late 2006, Primary PDC remained in existence under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, but conducts no commercial business and has no employees.
Polaroid’s bankruptcy is widely attributed to the failure of senior management — unable to anticipate the impact of digital cameras on its film business. This type of managerial failure is also known as the success trap
After the bankruptcy, the Polaroid brand was licensed for use on other products with the assistance of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. In September 2002, World Wide Licenses, a subsidiary of The Character Group plc, was granted the exclusive rights for three years to manufacture and sell digital cameras under the Polaroid brand for distribution internationally. Polaroid branded LCDs and plasma televisions and portable DVD players had also appeared on the market.
On April 27, 2005, Petters Group Worldwide announced its acquisition of PHC. Petters has in the past bought up failed companies with well-known names for the value of those names. The same year, Flextronics purchased Polaroid’s manufacturing operations and the decision was made to send most of the manufacturing to China. It stopped making Polaroid cameras in 2007 and discontinued the sale of Polaroid film after 2009 to the dismay of loyal consumers. On December 18, 2008, the post-reorganization Polaroid Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Minnesota. The bankruptcy filing came shortly after the criminal investigation of its parent company, Petters Group Worldwide, and the parent company founder, Tom Petters.
28 July 2001
The Australian, Ian Thorpe becomes the first swimmer to win six gold medals at a single World Swimming Championship.
With the 2001 Australian Championships held in Hobart in March, Thorpe added the 800 m freestyle to his repertoire, after FINA had added the event for the 2001 World Aquatics Championships. Thorpe began his campaign by successfully defending his 400 m title with a time just 0.17 s outside his world record. The following night in the 800 m event, he drew away from Hackett in the last 100 m to break Kieren Perkins’ 1994 world record by over four seconds. He earned his third title by cutting 0.66 s from van den Hoogenband’s 200 m world record to set a new mark of 1 min 44.69 s. This performance made him the third male after John Konrads and Tim Shaw to hold world records over three distances simultaneously. His subsequent victory in the 100 m freestyle in a new personal best of 49.05 s made him the first since Konrads in 1959 to hold all Australian freestyle titles from 100 m to 800 m. This indicated that he could swim faster at the subsequent World Championships in Fukuoka, where he was looking to regain the ascendancy from van den Hoogenband.
Thorpe arrived in Fukuoka having been chosen by broadcaster TV Asahi as the marketing drawcard of the event. With the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay being held after the 400 m freestyle on the first night, Thorpe appeared to be conserving energy when he reached the 200 m mark two seconds outside his world record. Although he was 0.93 s behind at the final turn, a final 50 m burst in 24.36 s saw him cut a further 0.42 s from his world record. The relay saw him dive in fractionally ahead of American Jason Lezak after Klim, Callus and Pearson had completed the first three legs. Thorpe fell behind in the early half of the leg before kicking away in the closing stages, to seal gold with his fastest-ever relay split of 47.87 s. In the 800 m final, he shadowed Hackett for the first 750 m, staying within a body length. He then broke clear to win by a body length, lowering his world record by over two seconds. The 200 m freestyle rematch with van den Hoogenband provided Thorpe with a chance to rectify his strategy from the Olympics; this time he allowed the Dutchman to lead through the first 100 m. Thorpe pulled even at the 150 m mark and then broke away towards the finishing wall two body lengths clear. He lowered his world record to 1 min 44.06 s in the process, prompting van den Hoogenband to raise his arm aloft. Thorpe’s winning streak was interrupted in the 100 m freestyle when his personal best of 48.81 s placed him fourth, but he returned to form in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay. Anchoring the team of Klim, Hackett and Kirby, the Australians lowered their world record time by more than two seconds, leaving the Italians more than six seconds in arrears. Having overtaken Klim as Australia’s leading 100 m freestyle swimmer, Thorpe was entrusted with anchoring the 4 × 100 m medley relay team on 28 July. After Matt Welsh, Regan Harrison and Geoff Huegill had finished their legs, Thorpe’s change left him half a body length behind the new 100 m world champion Anthony Ervin of the United States. The Americans were expected to win, and with his typically slow start, Thorpe turned a body length behind with 50 m remaining. With an American victory seeming inevitable, Thorpe managed to accelerate and deprive Ervin of the lead in the last 5 m. This made Thorpe the only swimmer to have won six gold medals at a World Championships, and the first since Shaw in 1974 to win the 200–400–800 treble. His performances formed the basis for Australia’s gold medal win over the United States 13–9. It was also the first time since the 1956 Summer Olympics that Australia had topped the medal tally at a global meet. Thorpe’s achievements led to predictions that he could match Mark Spitz’s seven gold medals at the 1972 Summer Olympics, which he played down.
6 January 2001
The US Congress certifies George W Bush winner of 2000 presidential elections.
On this day in 2001, more than five weeks after balloting ended, Vice President Al Gore, the 2000 Democratic presidential nominee, presided over a joint session of Congress that certified George W. Bush of Texas, the Republican nominee, as the winner. The disputed outcome in Florida caused the delay. It was resolved when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, on Dec. 12 to halt a statewide manual recount of the ballots ordered, in a 4-3 vote, by the Florida Supreme Court.
Bush’s margin of victory at that point was less than one half of one percent. The high court’s ruling gave him Florida’s 25 electoral votes. That, in turn, gave him 271 votes to Gore’s 266 — one more than the 270 required to be declared the winner. It paved the way for Bush to take the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2001, thereby becoming the nation’s 43rd president.
Although Gore finished second in the electoral vote, he received 543,895 more popular votes than Bush. This marked the fourth election in U.S. history in which the winner failed to get a plurality of the popular vote. The others were the elections of 1824, 1876 and 1888.
Gore failed to win the popular vote in his home state, Tennessee, which both he and his father had represented in the Senate, making him the first major-party presidential candidate to have lost his home state since Democrat George McGovern lost South Dakota in 1972.
Furthermore, Gore lost West Virginia, a state that had voted Republican only once in the previous six presidential elections. He also lost Arkansas, the home state of two-term President Bill Clinton, after having largely shunned Clinton’s help during his own presidential campaign. A victory in any one of those three states would have given Gore enough electoral votes to win the presidency without Florida.
Bush lost Connecticut, the state of his birth. He was also the first Republican to win the presidency without winning Vermont or Illinois, the second Republican to win the presidency without winning California — James A. Garfield in 1880 was the first — and the only victorious Republican to fail to receive any electoral votes from California.
15 December 2001
The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens renovation.
On this day in 2001, Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after a team of experts spent 11 years and $27 million to fortify the tower without eliminating its famous lean.
In the 12th century, construction began on the bell tower for the cathedral of Pisa, a busy trade center on the Arno River in western Italy, some 50 miles from Florence. While construction was still in progress, the tower’s foundation began to sink into the soft, marshy ground, causing it to lean to one side. Its builders tried to compensate for the lean by making the top stories slightly taller on one side, but the extra masonry required only made the tower sink further. By the time it was completed in 1360, modern-day engineers say it was a miracle it didn’t fall down completely.
Though the cathedral itself and the adjoining baptistery also leaned slightly, it was the Torre Pendente di Pisa, or Leaning Tower of Pisa, that became the city’s most famous tourist attraction. By the 20th century, the 190-foot-high white marble tower leaned a dramatic 15 feet off the perpendicular. In the year before its closing in 1990, 1 million people visited the old tower, climbing its 293 weathered steps to the top and gazing out over the green Campo dei Miracoli outside. Fearing it was about to collapse, officials appointed a group of 14 archeologists, architects and soil experts to figure out how to take some–but not all–of the famous tilt away.
Though an initial attempt in 1994 almost toppled the tower, engineers were eventually able to reduce the lean by between 16 and 17 inches by removing earth from underneath the foundations. When the tower reopened on December 15, 2001, engineers predicted it would take 300 years to return to its 1990 position. Though entrance to the tower is now limited to guided tours, hordes of tourists can still be found outside, striking the classic pose–standing next to the tower pretending to hold it up–as cameras flash.