Soong Mei-ling, the influential wife of Chiang Kai-shek and a towering figure in 20th-century Chinese politics, died in New York at 105.

Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during re-entry, killing all seven astronauts, after foam debris had damaged its wing at launch.

American and British forces launched airstrikes and a ground invasion of Iraq, opening a war to topple Saddam Hussein over disputed weapons claims.

A bomb ripped through a crowded double-decker bus in Mumbai, India, killing four people and wounding dozens in an attack linked to ongoing sectarian tensions.

A massive car bomb outside the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf killed over 85 people, including senior Shia cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, deepening Iraq's sectarian crisis.

A series of extreme solar flares and coronal mass ejections, dubbed the 'Halloween Storms,' peak and disrupt satellites, power grids, and airline routes worldwide.

U.S. soldiers pulled Saddam Hussein, disheveled and bearded, from an underground hiding hole near his hometown of Tikrit, ending a nine-month manhunt.