Major Events of Presidency:
- Bush reinstates ban on aid to international agencies counseling on or performing abortions
- Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives established
- Bush administration reaffirms decision to abandon ratification of the Kyoto Protocol
- U.S. spy plane flying over South China Sea clipped by a Chinese fighter jet
- Bush pledges military support to Taiwan in the event of an attack against China,easing diplomatic tensions
- $1.35 trillion tax cut signed into law
- Terrorists destroy world Trade Center and damage Pentagon
- United States begins military action against Afghanistan, Bush Doctrine enacted
- Anthrax scare in capital leads to $1.5 billion being provided to fight bio-terrorism
- Enron Corporation files for Chapter Eleven bankruptcy protection, largest bankruptcy case in American history
- U.S. withdraws from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
- No Child Left Behind Act signed
- Questions emerge concerning lapses in intelligence that may have led to 9/11 tragedy
- Nuclear Arms treaty signed with Russia, designed to lower nuclear armament levels in both countries
- Following Enron and WorldCom scandals President Bush calls for new laws on corporate abuse
- Bipartisan vote in the senate authorizes Bush to use force against Iraq
- Republicans gain control of senate, maintain control of House
- Bush reveals a tax-cut plan of $674 billion over ten years
- Deadline for Hussein to leave Iraq passes, Bush addresses informs American people that the United States is at war with Iraq
- Citing costs of the Iraq War, the Senate approves reduction of Bush’s tax cut plan to $350 million
- President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair air joint address on Iraqi television
- UN Security Council votes to lift sanctions on Iraq imposed since the 1991 Gulf War
- Bush signs into law his $350 billion tax-cut package
- President issues comprehensive guidelines forbidding federal law enforcement agencies from considering race or ethnicity in routine patrol duties (racial profiling)
- Saddam Hussein’s two sons Uday and Qusay killed in Mosul, Iraq by U.S. forces
- Joint Congressional Committee on Intelligence releases a report which concludes that intelligence agencies failed to respond to alerts about potential targets and methods preceding the 9/11 terrorist attacks
- Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector David Kay reports the Iraq Survey Group failed to find any biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons in Iraq
- Ban on late-term abortion signed into law
- Bill overhauling Medicare signed into law
- U.S. forces in Iraq confront a violent uprising beginning with Shiite Muslims in Baghdad and Sunni guerrillas in Fallujah
- CBS broadcasts photographs of U.S. Army abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison
- Massachusetts becomes the first state to offer marriage licenses to same sex couples
- Attorney General John Ashcroft appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee
- Coalition for Provisional Authority formerly ends foreign occupation of Iraq
- Al-Jazeera airs excerpts from a videotape of Osama bin-Laden
- In his State of the Union, President Bush calls for an historic restructuring of Social Security
- Terri Schiavo case
- South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun meets with Bush to discuss efforts to persuade North Korea to join the six-party talks
- Vietnamese Premier Phan Van Khai meets with Bush to discuss human rights and treatment of ethnic and religious minorities in Vietnam
- Senate passes an omnibus energy bill aimed at supporting the traditional energy industries of oil and natural gas, provides tax incentives for the use of alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power
- First U.S. space mission since the failed return of the Columbia in 2003
- Hurricane Katrina strikes the southern coast of the United States with devastating effects
- Senate votes to conclude debate on a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriages in the United States
- President Bush vetoes a bill to lift constraints on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research
- President Bush signs a bill providing for the construction of a 700-mile fence along the United States-Mexico border
- Democrats recapture control of the U.S. House and Senate
- Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is hanged in Baghdad, Iraq
- Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, first female Speaker of the House
- “Troop surge” in Iraq in an attempt to increase security in the capital of Baghdad and smother insurgency centers
- Seung-Hui Cho kills himself and 32 fellow students at Virginia Tech in the deadliest campus gun rampage in U.S. history
- Bush reaches a record low approval rating
- Supreme Court reverses an April decision and agrees to hear appeals from Guantanamo Bay detainees who have not had access to the federal courts
- Anti-terrorism Bill passed
- The Dow Jones industrial average closes at 14,164, its all-time high
- Middle East Peace Conference hosted in Annapolis, Maryland
- Congress passes new energy legislation to increase automobile fuel efficiency standards and mandates increases in biofuel production
- President Bush proposes a $145 billion stimulus package in response to a housing crisis and rapidly increasing oil prices
- U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan kill a top Al-Qaeda leader, Abu Laith al-Libi
- The Senate passes a $170-billion stimulus package
- House and Senate override President Bush’s veto of the Farm Bill
- Senate Select Committee on Intelligence finds President Bush and other officials greatly exaggerated the evidence showing that Saddam Hussein held weapons of mass destruction
- U.S. government places Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under its control
- Senate approves end to the long-standing ban on trading nuclear fuels with India
- President Bush signs a $700 billion bailout plan for failing bank assets, the largest in U.S. history
- U.S. gross domestic product drops by 0.3 percent, the first time GDP has shrunk in 17 years
- Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve agree to provide another $800 billion in lending programs
- Federal Reserve cuts interest rates to 0%
- President Bush issues a $17.4-billion auto bailout to General Motors and Chrysler