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.
• 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 20 – U.S. and coalition forces launch Operation Iraqi Freedom.
• 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.
• 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.
• Aug. 14 – White House officials anonymously tell Washington Post that invasion goals were "never realistic."
• 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
• Jan. 9 – Retired British war hero General Sir Michael Rose calls for Prime Minister Tony Blair's impeachment for "disastrous" and "illegal" war in Iraq.
• 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 Baghdad morgue cannot cope with the number of dead arriving as the result of growing sectarian violence.
• 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.
• 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.
• March 14 – Pentagon acknowledges that Iraq is in a state of civil war.
• Jan. 10 – Bush announces an escalation of the war in Iraq, aka "The Surge."
• May 15 – President replaces himself, sort of, by appointing Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute as Iraq and Afghanistan "War Czar."
• June 29 – Apple introduces the iPhone.