Representatives of the member states of the European Union accept a proposed European Constitution, subject to its ratification by each state

George W. Bush wins a second term, defeating Democrat John Kerry in the US presidential election

Palestinian president Yasser Arafat dies in a hospital near Paris

Prime minister Viktor Yanukovych is at first declared winner of a rigged (and subsequently annulled) presidential election in Ukraine

Hamid Karzai becomes the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan

Tests reveal that Viktor Yushchenko, opposition candidate in Ukraine's presidential election, has been poisoned with dyoxin

Armed robbers, suspected of links with the IRA, steal more than £25 million from the Northern Bank in Belfast

A massive earthquake under the Indian Ocean triggers a tsunami that kills nearly 200,000 people

Opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko easily wins the re-run of the rigged presidential election in the Ukraine

Daniele Benati publishes Cani dell'inferno ("Hounds of Hell"), in which deported Italian dissidents drift with nothing to do in a mysterious American city, an image of hell

After months of protests demanding regime change and often violent unrest, the army in Thailand seizes control and declaries martial law

Patriarch Christodoulos attends the funeral in Rome of Pope John Paul II

Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, after sheltering since 2000 in Japan, arrives unexpectedly in Chile

The Swedish author Stieg Larsson publishes his phenomenally successful novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first of the three volumes in his Millennium series