2001
• Sept. 11 — Al-Qaeda terrorists kill 3,000 Americans with hijacked airliners.
• Sept. 20 — President Bush announces War on Terror™ to nation.
• Oct. 7 — Operation Enduring Freedom begins in Afghanistan.
• Oct. 23 — Apple releases the iPod, a portable digital music player that will hold thousands of songs.
• Dec. 17 — American forces capture al-Qaeda mountain fortresses at Tora Bora, but bin Laden has fled.
2002
• Jan. 29 — Bush signals his intention to invade Iraq with "Axis of Evil" speech.
• Feb. 17 — Paris Hilton celebrates her 21st birthday with parties in New York, Las Vegas, London and Tokyo.
• July 17 — Apple introduces 20-gigabyte iPod with touch-sensitive navigation wheel.
• Oct. 11 — Both houses of Congress authorize president to go to war with Iraq.
2003
• March — The United States invades Iraq.
• April 28 — Apple opens the iTunes music store. Offers music downloads that can be burned to CD, or played on iPods.
• May 2 — Bush declares major combat operations over with "Mission Accomplished" speech on aircraft carrier.
• July 19 — Apple introduces 40-gigabyte iPod with backlight buttons.
• Dec. 2 — Paris Hilton's reality show "The Simple Life" debuts one week after a video of her having sex appears online.
• Dec. 13 — Saddam Hussein found by U.S. forces in spider hole.
2004
• Jan. 6 — Apple introduces iPod Mini with a brushed-metal exterior, available in five colors.
• March 31 — Insurgents mutilate four U.S. contractors in Fallujah, triggering U.S. siege on city.
• April 28 — U.S. torture and sexual humiliation of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib revealed to public.
• July 19 — Apple gives the iPod a color screen, click-wheel navigation and a new 60-gigabyte hard drive that holds up to 15,000 songs.
• Nov. 7 — U.S. troops use flesh-consuming white phosphorous during second siege of Fallujah.
2005
• Jan. 11 — Apple introduces the iPod Shuffle, which is smaller than a pack of gum. Its compact design, which doesn't include a screen, makes it an ideal backup iPod.
• Jan. 30 — In the first election of post-Saddam constitutional government, Iraq votes along strict ethnic and religious lines.
• April 20 — Paris Hilton announces she and Nicole Richie are no longer friends.
• Aug. 12 — Paris Hilton offers a $5,000 reward for her Chihuahua, Tinkerbell, who went missing after Hilton's apartment was burglarized.
• Sept. 7 — Apple replaces iPod Mini with the iPod Nano, which uses a solid-state flash memory chip instead of a hard drive. Thinner than a pencil!
• Oct. 19 — Saddam Hussein's trial begins.
2006
• February — Bloggers release mock-up images of rumored next-generation iPod with touch-screen display covering entire surface.
• Feb. 26 — Fighting between the minority Sunni and the majority Shiite Iraqis reaches new intensity after Sunnis bomb Al Askari Mosque, an iconic Shiite holy place.
• May 6 — British newspaper the Telegraph reports that the Baghdad morgue cannot cope with the number of dead arriving as the result of growing sectarian violence.
• June 2006 — Apple updates the U2 iPod, with 30 gigabytes of storage and improved battery life.
• Sept. 5 — Pakistan signs truce with Taliban based in Pakistan. Cross-border attacks into Afghanistan immediately spike.
• Sept. 12 — Apple introduces a new iPod Shuffle model. It's smaller than a matchbook.
• Oct. 9 — People magazine reports Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie have reconciled.
• Nov. 8 — Bush fires Donald Rumsfeld, not for losing the war, but for helping lose the 2006 congressional elections.
• Dec. 6 — The bipartisan Iraq Study Group releases recommendations on how to proceed in Iraq. Bush ignores them.
• Dec. 30 — Saddam Hussein is executed by hanging in northern Baghdad for crimes against humanity.
2007
• Jan. 9 — Apple CEO Steve Jobs announces the iPhone.
• Jan. 10 — Bush announces an escalation of the war in Iraq, aka "The Surge."
• April 9 — Apple announces it has sold 100 million iPods.
• June 26 — Paris Hilton released from jail after serving 22 days for driving on suspended license. "Don't serve time. Let the time serve you," she told Larry King after her release.
• June 29 — Apple introduces the iPhone.
This article appears in Aug 8-14, 2007.