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Jason Bourne

Jason Bourne

Jason Bourne is a fictional character in a series of novels by Robert Ludlum and later Eric Van Lustbader who picks up where Ludlum left off. He first appeared in The Bourne Identity (1980). This novel was adapted for both television in 1988 and a film by the same name in 2002 – see The Bourne Identity (film). The character, currently, has since been in three more novels and one other film.

Novels

- Real Name: David Webb
- Aliases: Delta, Jason Bourne, Cain The character named Jason Bourne has a long and mysterious past. His real name is David Webb, a career foreign service officer, specifically a specialist in Far Eastern affairs. Before the events in Identity, Webb had a wife named Dao and two children named Joshua and Alyssa in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. During the Vietnam War an aircraft strayed into Cambodia and dropped two bombs at a spot near the Mekong River unintentionally killing Webb's wife and two children. Due to Cambodia's neutrality in the war, every nation disclaimed the plane since no one wanted to be responsible for the incident. Having nothing left, Webb went to Saigon and trained for a special top-secret unit called Medusa (many years later the unit and its actions would still remain top-secret). At this point, Webb turned into Delta, his codename within the unit.

Medusa

The top-secret and government-funded project codenamed Medusa is a vital part of David Webb's life. Taking place during the Vietnam War, Webb was recruited into Medusa by friend and CIA agent, Alexander Conklin after the death of Webb's wife and children. At the time, Webb was furious and wanted revenge in any possible capacity. By joining Medusa, he felt he was seeking revenge against the people that presumably killed his wife and children, the North Vietnamese. Since no nation took responsibility for the bombings in Cambodia (and the Americans were not supposed to be there) whoever was responsible remains a mystery. The reason why Medusa remains top-secret is because the members of Medusa are all criminals, who were hired by the American government during the war to do its dirty work: to infiltrate parts of Northern Vietnam and kill suspected members of the Viet Cong. In addition, they also murdered village chiefs that were suspected to be in collaboration with the Viet Cong and aided in rescuing POWs wherever they could. They were considered an assassination team or a death squad. For doing this, each member would be taken care of by Uncle Sam. Most of the members were murderers, fugitives, smugglers, arms dealers, or drug lords being led by Delta. Delta became well known as a ruthless person, with little regard for orders, but succeeding in all his missions. To get to Delta, his brother - Gordon Webb - was kidnapped. One member of Medusa was a man by the name of Jason Charles Bourne. During the mission to save Gordon Webb, it was found out that Jason Bourne was a double agent born in Australia. Bourne was into all sorts of illegal activity including slavery, narcotics, smuggling, and assassinations. With this knowledge, Delta executed Bourne in Tam Quan while he (Bourne) was busy exposing the rescue operation. Due to the American government not wanting to acknowledge the existence of Medusa or its members, they never reported the death of Bourne, but rather listed his status as MIA.

Treadstone 71

Years later, a black ops arm of the CIA was formed called Treadstone 71 and Webb was called up by the creator of Treadstone and the creator of Medusa (nicknamed The Monk). At this point, Webb (Delta) takes the identity of Jason Bourne due to his status as MIA in the war and the fact that Bourne was in reality a ruthless killer that had a long criminal record. The point of all this was to turn Jason Bourne into something more than he really was, into a contract assassin who would be known all over the world for terminating the lives of just about anyone. The assassin's nickname was Cain. The reasoning for creating such a fallacy was to create a competition for a well-known assassin named Carlos or Carlos the Jackal, who up until then was the world's best and most famous assassin. The myth of Cain was created by having him take credit for any well-publicized killings that took place in Asia (and later Europe) regardless of the circumstances. By creating Cain, it would drive Carlos out in the open where Cain could kill Carlos and take his place. To add insult to Carlos' name, Cain decided to beat Carlos to his next victim and protect him so that Carlos would fail. Unfortunately Cain was unsuccessful and ended up shot a few times (once in the head) and left for dead in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Luckily he would later be recovered by a fishing boat only to awake as an amnesiac.

Identity

For the plot of the novel see The Bourne Identity. Throughout the novel Bourne fights to learn about his past and his true identity while being chased by both the CIA and Carlos' henchmen. During the novel at a hotel Bourne takes a young woman hostage to escape. This woman named Marie St. Jacques, as it turns out is an employee of the Canadian government. Bourne and Marie start discovering the identity of Jason Bourne the contract assassin. The true identity of David Webb is known only to those at Treadstone. She is convinced that the man she knows as Jason Bourne cannot be the ruthless killer that all discoveries they make seem to imply. It is due to Marie that Jason continues to search for his true identity and in the end finds the truth. Between the books Identity and Supremacy, Bourne marries Marie and they both settle down (although under guard) in a small town in Maine. David Webb would go on to become an associate professor in Oriental studies at a local university.

Supremacy

For the plot of the novel see The Bourne Supremacy. When Supremacy starts Marie is taken captive by the United States government in an attempt to turn David Webb back into his former self, the mythical Jason Bourne. While in reality it was the U.S. government who took Marie captive they pinned the blame on a fictitious powerful Chinese businessman. This scheme was done to make Bourne go after a faux Jason Bourne that had been credited with a Far East political assassination that could, in a worst case scenario, cause a civil war in China over the ownership of Hong Kong.

Ultimatum

For the plot of the novel see The Bourne Ultimatum. As Carlos the Jackal enters old age and his infamy fades, he decides that he will do two things before he dies: the first is to kill Jason Bourne. Webb's family is forced to hide in the Caribbean while Webb himself works with old friend and CIA agent Alex Conklin to hunt down and kill the Jackal first. Webb poses as an important member of Medusa, now an nearly omnipotent economic force that controls the head of NATO, leading figures in the Defense Department, and large NYSE firms. The plan is to use Medusa's resources to contact the Jackal. Webb just misses the Jackal several times, including when the Jackal locates Webb's family in the Caribbean, before Webb stages his own death and convinces the Jackal that he has succeeded. Following this, the Jackal turns to his second goal -- to destroy the KGB facility of Novgorod, where the Jackal was trained and later turned away. Webb tracks the Jackal down with the help of Conklin and a KGB agent as the Jackal begins destroying the KGB compound. In a final confrontation, Webb at last kills the Jackal and returns to his family.

Television movie

In 1988 a two-part made-for-television movie of The Bourne Identity aired on ABC. It starred Richard Chamberlain in the role of Jason Bourne and Jaclyn Smith as Marie St. Jacques. The TV movie was largely faithful to Robert Ludlum's novel.

Films

In the films, Jason Bourne, played by Matt Damon, is much more simplified, and, some argue, unrecognizable as the character in the novels. He was a contract CIA assassin working on a job when he had a sudden attack of conscience, failed his mission, and was shot multiple times in the back trying to flee. Similar to the novel, he was left for dead in the Mediterranean Sea and when he awoke was an amnesiac. Near the end of The Bourne Supremacy, Bourne learns that his real name is actually David Webb and that he was born April 15, 1971 in Nixa, Missouri. In the films he speaks English, French, Russian, Dutch, and German fluently instead of English, French and "eastern dialects" as in the novels. Bourne, Jason

Fictional character

A fictional character is any person who appears in a work of fiction. More accurately, a fictional character is the person or conscious entity we imagine to exist within the world of such a work. In addition to people, characters can be aliens, animals, gods or, occasionally, inanimate objects. Characters are almost always at the center of fictional texts, especially novels and plays. It is, in fact, hard to imagine a novel or play without characters, though such texts have been attempted (James Joyce's Finnegans Wake is one of the most famous examples). In poetry, there is almost always some sort of person present, but often only in the form of a narrator or an imagined listener. In various forms of theatre, performance arts and cinema (except for animation and CGI movies), fictional characters are performed by actors, dancers and singers. In animations and puppetry, they are voiced by voice actors, though there have been several examples, particularly, in machinima, where characters are voiced by computer generated voices. The process of setting up characters for a work of fiction is called characterization.

Names of characters

The names of fictional characters are often quite important. The conventions of naming have changed over time. In many Restoration comedies, for example, characters are given emblematic names that sound nothing like real life names: "Sir Fidget", "Mr. Pinchwife" and "Mrs. Squeamish" are some typical examples (all from The Country Wife by William Wycherley). Some 18th and 19th century texts, on the other hand, represent characters' names by the use of a single letter and a long dash (this convention is also used for other proper nouns, such as place names). This has the effect of suggesting that the author had a real person in mind but omitted the full name for propriety's sake. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo uses this technique. One reason for this dash is that, in Britain and in other countries with a feudal heritage, the names of counties and places might be the names of the feudal lords over those places. One cannot arbitrarily give someone the name "Earl of Manchester" because someone may either have or be elevated to such a title, so it may be grounds for a lawsuit. Hence fictitious names are based on disparaged historical characters, or tend to be re-used. For example, "Lady de Winter" is a character in Dumas pères Three Musketeers, and the family name was used in Du Maurier's Rebecca. (The same holds true for the names of houses: in the latter book, "Windermere" is named after a lake, not a feudal holding). The 19th century movements of sentimentalism, realism and naturalism all encouraged readers to imagine characters as real people by giving them realistic names, names that were often the titles of books, such as Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre or Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. These conventions were followed by the majority of subsequent literature, including most contemporary literature. However, there are few characters with names that are completely arbitrary. At the very least, names tend to indicate nationality and status. Often, the literal meaning or origin of a name is of some symbolic importance.
Some ways of reading characters
Readers vary enormously in how they understand fictional characters. The most extreme ways of reading fictional characters would be to think of them exactly as real people or to think of them as purely artistic creations that have everything to do with craft and nothing to do with real life. Most styles of reading fall somewhere in between. Here are some typical ways of reading fictional characters in literary criticism:
Character as symbol
In some readings, certain characters are understood to represent a given quality or abstraction. Rather than simply being people, these characters stand for something larger. Many characters in Western literature have been read as Christ symbols, for example. Other characters have been read as symbolizing capitalist greed (as in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby), the futility of fulfilling the American Dream, or quixotic romanticism (Don Quixote).
Character as representative
Another way of reading characters symbolically is to understand each character as a representative of a certain group of people. For example, Bigger Thomas of Native Son by Richard Wright is often seen as representative of young black men in the 1930s, doomed to a life of poverty and exploitation. Dagny Taggart and other characters from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand are seen as representative of American's hard-nosed, hard-working class. Many practitioners of cultural criticism and feminist criticism focus their analysis of characters on cultural stereotypes. In particular, they consider the ways in which authors rely on and/or work against stereotypes when they create their characters. Such critics, for example, would read Native Son in relation to racist stereotypes of African American men as sexually violent (especially against white women). In reading Bigger Thomas' character, one could ask in what ways Richard Wright relied on these stereotypes to create a violent African-American male character and in what ways he fought against it by making that character the protagonist of the novel rather than an anonymous villain. Often, readings that focus on stereotypes demand that we focus our attention on seemingly unimportant characters, such as the ubiquitous sambo characters in early cinema. Minor characters, or stock characters, are often the focus of this kind of analysis since they tend to rely more heavily on stereotypes than more central characters.
Characters as historical or biographical references
Sometimes characters obviously represent important historical figures. For example, Nazi-hunter Yakov Liebermann in The Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin is often compared to real life Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, and corrupted populist politician Willie Stark from All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren is often compared to Louisiana governor Huey P. Long. Other times, authors base characters on people from their own personal lives. Glenarvon by Lady Caroline Lamb chronicles her love affair with Lord Byron, who is thinly disguised as the title character. Nicole, a destructive, mentally ill woman in Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is often seen as a fictionalized version of Fitzgerald's wife Zelda. Perhaps because so many people enjoy imagining characters as real people, many critics devote their time to seeking out real people on whom literary figures were likely based. Frequently authors base stories on themselves or their loved ones.
Character as words
Some language- or text-oriented critics emphasize that characters are nothing more than certain conventional uses of words on a page: names or even just pronouns repeated throughout a text. They refer to characters as functions of the text. Some critics go so far as to suggest that even authors do not exist outside the texts that construct them.
Character as patient: psychoanalytic readings
Psychoanalytic criticism usually treats characters as real people possessing complex psyches. Psychoanalytic critics approach literary characters as an analyst would treat a patient, searching their dreams, past, and behavior for explanations of their fictional situations. Alternatively, some psychoanalytic critics read characters as mirrors for the audience's psychological fears and desires. Rather than representing realistic psyches then, fictional characters offer us a way to act out psychological dramas of our own in symbolic and often hyperbolic form. The classic example of this would be Freud's reading of Oedipus (and Hamlet, for that matter) as emblematizing every child's fantasy of murdering his father to possess his mother. This form of reading persists today in much film criticism. The feminist critic Laura Mulvey is considered a pioneer in the field. Her groundbreaking 1975 article, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"[http://www.jahsonic.com/VPNC.html], analyzed the role of the male viewer of conventional narrative cinema as fetishist, using psychoanalysis "as a political weapon, demonstrating the way the unconscious of patriarchal society has structured film form."
Round characters vs. flat characters
Some critics distinguish between "round characters" and "flat characters" or types. The former are made up of many personality traits and tend to be complex and both more life-like and believable, while the latter consist of only a few personality traits and tend to be simple and less believable. The protagonist (main character, sometimes known as the "hero" or the "heroine") of a novel is certain to be a round character; a minor, supporting character in the same novel may be a flat character. Scarlett O'Hara, of Gone with the Wind, is a good example of a round character, whereas her servant Prissy exemplifies the flat character. Likewise, many antagonists (characters in conflict with protagonists, sometimes known as "villains") are round characters. An example of an antagonist who is a round character is Gone with the Wind's Rhett Butler. A number of stereotypical or "stock" characters have developed throughout the history of drama. Some of these characters include the country bumpkin, the con artist, and the city slicker. Often, these characters are the basis of "flat characters", though elements of stock characters can also be present in round characters as well.
Unusual uses
Postmodern fiction frequently incorporates real characters into fictional and even realistic surroundings. In film, the appearance of a real person as himself inside of a fictional story is a type of cameo. For instance, Woody Allen's Annie Hall has Allen's character call in Marshall McLuhan to resolve a disagreement. In some experimental fiction, the author acts as a character within his own text. One of the earliest examples of this is Niebla ("Fog") by Miguel de Unamuno (1907), in which the main character visits Unamuno in his office to discuss his fate in the novel. Paul Auster also employs this device in his novel City of Glass (1985), which opens with the main character getting a phone call for Paul Auster. At first the main character explains that the caller has reached a wrong number, but eventually he decides to pretend to be Auster and see where it leads him. In Immortality by Milan Kundera, the author references himself in a storyline seemingly separate from that of his fictional characters, but at the end of the novel, Kundera meets his own characters. With the rise of the "star" system in Hollywood, many famous actors are so familiar that it can be hard to limit our reading of their character to a single film. In some sense, Bruce Lee is always Bruce Lee, Woody Allen is always Woody Allen, and Harrison Ford is always Harrison Ford; all often portray characters that are very alike, so audiences fuse the star persona with the characters they tend to play, a principle explored in the Arnold Schwarzeneggar vehicle, Last Action Hero. Some fiction and drama make constant reference to a character who is never seen. This often becomes a sort of joke with the audience. This device is the centrepoint of one of the most unusual and original plays of the 20th century, Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, in which Godot of the title never arrives.
Iconic fictional characters
Some fictional characters are so famous that they can be references easily outside of the work from which they came, often because they have come to symbolize some archetype or ideal.
Lists of fictional characters

General

- List of advertising characters
- List of aliens in fiction
- List of comic and cartoon pairs
- Comic and cartoon characters named after people
- List of notable female fictional characters
- List of dead fictional characters
- List of fictional characters with one eye
- List of fictional clergy and religious figures
- List of mad scientists
- List of mythological pairs
- List of real-life characters
- List of fictional robots and androids
- List of Greek mythological characters
- List of heroic fictional scientists and engineers
- List of unseen characters
- List of video game mascots
- List of fictional witches
- List of fictional television sitcom characters
- List of fictional people known for their names
- List of horror film killers
Stock characters

- Damsel in distress
- Femme fatale
- Butch and femme
- Hero
- Mad scientist
- Villain
Fictional animals

- list of fictional apes (and other non-human primates, excluding Monkeys)
- list of fictional monkeys
- list of fictional bears
- list of fictional birds
- list of fictional cats
- list of fictional dinosaurs
- list of fictional dogs
- list of fictional dragons
- list of fictional elephants
- list of fictional horses
- list of fictional mice and rats
- list of fictional pigs
- list of fictional rabbits
- list of fictional sheep
- List of fictional animals of other species
Lists of fictional characters in specific works or series

- List of X-Men
- List of Digimon
- List of Pokémon
- Characters from Dune
- Characters of The Sandman
- Characters in Atlas Shrugged
- List of DC Comics characters
- List of Dickens characters
- List of Disney characters
- List of Dragon Ball characters
- List of Middle-earth peoples
- List of Middle-earth characters
- Characters from The Lord of the Rings
- List of Characters in Grand Theft Auto Vice City
- List of characters in Beavis and Butt-head
- List of Hercules and Xena characters
- List of Mortal Kombat characters
- List of Archie Comics characters
- List of Characters in The Chronicles of Narnia
- List of characters from Family Guy
- List of characters from The Simpsons
- Fictional characters within The Simpsons
- List of celebrities on The Simpsons
- List of recurring characters from The Simpsons
- One-time characters from The Simpsons
- List of characters from The Sopranos
- List of the Legend of Zelda characters
- List of Hanna-Barbera characters
- Invader Zim characters
- List of Mario series characters
- List of Marvel Comics characters
- List of Nintendo characters
- List of Final Fantasy characters
- List of Characters from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- List of Mega Man characters (original series)
- List of Mega Man characters (X series)
- List of Mega Man characters (Zero series)
- List of Mega Man characters (Legends series)
- List of Mega Man characters (Battle Network series)
- List of Metroid characters
- List of Tekken characters
- List of the Adventures of Tintin characters
- List of Carmen Sandiego characters
- List of characters in translations of Harry Potter
- List of characters in the Harry Potter books
- Characters in the Wheel of Time series
- List of Soul Calibur characters
- List of Star Trek characters
- List of Star Wars characters
- List of Sesame Street characters
- Minor characters from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- List of characters from Alias
- List of characters in the Oz books
- List of Robert Heinlein characters
- Love Hina main characters
- Love Hina minor characters
Heroes and villains

- List of fictional heroes
- List of anti-heroes
- List of black superheroes
- List of female superheroes
- List of male superheroes
- List of literary works with eponymous heroines
- List of supervillains
See also

- Archive of fictional things
- Fictional realm
- Grand argument
- Mary Sue
- The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time Category:Fiction Category:Lists of fictional characters
- ja:架空の人名一覧

1980 in literature

Events

- Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer (published 1979), reaches #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.
- Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie is published.

New books

- Company - Samuel Beckett
- The Bourne Identity - Robert Ludlum
- A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
- Cosmos - Carl Sagan
- The Covenant - James A. Michener
- The Cradle Will Fall - Mary Higgins Clark
- Crossroads Marseilles 1940 - Mary Jayne Gold
- The Devil's Alternative - Frederick Forsyth
- The Fifth Horseman - Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre
- Firestarter - Stephen King
- The Girl in a Swing - Richard Adams
- In Loon Lake - E. L. Doctorow
- Innocent Blood - P. D. James
- The Invasion of Canada - Pierre Berton
- The Iron Wolf and Other Stories - Richard Adams
- Joshua Then and Now - Mordecai Richler
- The Key to Rebecca - Ken Follett
- The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
- Princess Daisy - Judith Krantz
- Rage of Angels - Sidney Sheldon
- Random Winds - Belva Plain
- A Ring of Endless Light - Madeleine L'Engle
- Smiley's People - John le Carré
- Song of the Wild - Allan W. Eckert
- The Third Wave - Alvin Toffler
- Thy Neighbor's Wife - Gay Talese
- War of the Roses - Warren Adler

Births

Deaths

- January 3 - Joy Adamson, conservationist and author of Born Free (killed by a servant in northern Kenya).
- January 3 - G. S. Fraser, poet and critic
- January 11 - Barbara Pym, novelist
- March 25 - James Wright, poet
- April 15 - Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher, novelist and dramatist
- June 7 - Henry Miller, writer
- July 1 - C. P. Snow, novelist
- July 9 - Vinicius de Moraes, poet and songwriter
- July 26 - Kenneth Tynan, influential theatre critic
- September 18 - Katherine Anne Porter, novelist and essayist
- November 9 - Patrick Campbell, journalist and wit
- November 22 - Mae West, actress and dramatist
- December 2 - Romain Gary, writer
- December 8 - John Lennon, musician, author
- December 12 - Ben Travers, dramatist
- December 31 - Marshall McLuhan (author)
- date unknown - Gareth Evans, philosopher
- date unknown - Caradog Prichard, Welsh-language poet and novelist

Awards

- Booker Prize: William Golding, Rites of Passage
- See 1980 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
- Nebula Award: Gregory Benford, Timescape
- Newbery Medal for children's literature: Joan Blos, A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal
- Nobel Prize for Literature: Czeslaw Milosz
- Premio Cervantes : Juan Carlos Onetti
- Prix Goncourt: Yves Navarre, Le Jardin d'acclimatation
- Prix Médicis French: Jean-Luc Benoziglio, Cabinet-portrait who refused the prize, thus it was given to Jean Lahougue's Comptine des Height
- Prix Médicis International: Andre Brink, Une saison blanche et sèche
- Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Lanford Wilson, Talley's Folly
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Norman Mailer, The Executioner's Song
- Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Donald Justice, Selected Poems
- Whitbread Best Book Award: David Lodge, How Far Can You Go?
-

1988

1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on a Friday of the Gregorian calendar.

Events

January

- January 1 - The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America comes into existence, creating the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States.
- January 2 - Georgia celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
- January 9 - Connecticut celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
- January 26 - Australia celebrates its bicentennial day.

February

- February 3 - The United States House of Representatives rejects President Ronald Reagan's request for $36.25 million to support Nicaraguan Contras.
- February 6 - Massachusetts celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
- February 11 - Anthony M. Kennedy is appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
- February 13 - The 1988 Winter Olympics open in Calgary, Alberta, Canada
- February 17 - US Lieutenant Colonel William R. Higgins, serving with a United Nations group monitoring a truce in southern Lebanon is kidnapped (captors later kill him)
- February 21 - On his own televangelism program being taped in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Jimmy Swaggart confesses that he is guilty of an unspecified sin and will be temporarily leaving the pulpit. The "unspecified sin" was an affair with a prostitute.
- February 24 - The Supreme Court of the United States sides with Hustler magazine by overturning a lower court decision to award Jerry Falwell $200,000 for defamation (see Hustler Magazine v. Falwell)
- February 26 - Australia's Bicentennial year - discovered 200 years ago today
- February 28 - The 1988 Winter Olympics close.
- February 29 - Nazi document implicates Kurt Waldheim in WWII deportations

March

- March 1 - Anthony M. Frank is appointed United States Postmaster General
- March 7 - Operation Flavius - The SAS shoot dead three unarmed Irish Republican Army members in Gibraltar.
- March 8 - Two United States Army helicopters collide in Fort Campbell, Kentucky killing 17 servicemen
- March 9 - Students at Gallaudet University go on strike for the selection of a Deaf university president
- March 16 - The Halabja poison gas attack was carried out by Iraqi government forces.
- March 16 - Iran-Contra Affair: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
- March 19 - British army Corporals Woods and Howes are killed by the IRA in the so-called "Corporals killings".
- March 24 - Israeli court sentences Mordechai Vanunu to 18 years in prison for disclosing Israel's nuclear program to The Sunday Times
- March 29 - Assassination of Dulcie September in Paris

April

Paris
- April 4 - Governor Evan Mecham of Arizona is convicted in his impeachment trial and removed from office.
- April 10 - The Great Seto Bridge opened to traffic in Japan
- April 12 - Former pop singer Sonny Bono is elected mayor of Palm Springs, California
- April 14 - In Geneva Agreement, Soviet Union commits itself to withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan
- April 14 - USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) strikes a mine in the Persian Gulf while deployed on Operation Earnest Will
- April 16 - Israeli commandos kill PLO's Khalil Wazir (Abu Jihad) in Tunisia
- April 18 - U.S. Navy forces retaliate for the Roberts mining with Operation Praying Mantis, a day of strikes against Iranian oil platforms and naval vessels
- April 25 - In Israel John Demjanuk is sentenced to death for war crimes committed in World War II. He was accused of being a notorious guard at the Treblinka extermination camp known as "Ivan the Terrible" by survivors. Conviction overturned by Israeli Supreme Court.
- April 28 - Maryland celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
- April 28 - Aloha Flight 243 loses in flight several yards of its upper fuselage; extraordinarily, the craft lands with only one fatality.
- April 30 - World Expo '88 opens in Brisbane Queensland Australia. The exhibition runs for 6 months hosting pavilions from over
70 countries and thrusts the sleepy city of Brisbane into the international spotlight.

May

- May 15 - Soviet war in Afghanistan: After more than eight years of fighting, the Red Army begins its withdraw from Afghanistan.
- May 16 - A report by the Surgeon General C. Everett Koop states that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine.
- May 16 - California v. Greenwood: In a 6-2 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States rules that police officers do not need a search warrant to search through discarded garbage.
- May 23 - South Carolina celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
- May 24 - Section 28 (outlawing promotion of homosexuality in schools) is passed as law by Parliament in the United Kingdom.

June

- June 6 - Queen Elizabeth strips jockey Lester Piggott of his OBE
- June 11 - The name of the General Public License (GPL) is mentioned first time.
- June 21 - New Hampshire celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
- June 25 - Virginia celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
- June 25 - The Netherlands defeat the Soviet Union 2-0 to win Euro 88.
- June 28 - Four workers asphyxiated at a metal-plating plant in Auburn, Indiana, in the worst confined-space industrial accident in US history. A fifth victim dies two days later.
- June 29 - United States Supreme Court upholds the law allowing special prosecutor to investigate suspected crimes by executive branch officials.
- June 30 - Roman Catholic Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre consecrated four bishops at Ecône for his apostolate along with Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer without a Papal mandate.

July

- July 1 - Bologna, Italy: Quartetto Cetra's last concert after over forty years' musical career.
- July 3 - Iran Air Flight 655 shot down by missiles launched from the USS Vincennes ship
- July 6 - The Piper Alpha drilling platform in the North Sea is destroyed by explosions and fires killing 165 oil workers and 2 rescue mariners.
- July 26 - New York celebrates its bicentennial statehood.
- July 30¨- Antonio Gomes dos Santos stands motionless in a Lisbon, Portugal shopping center for 15 hours, 2 minutes and 55 seconds

August

- August 6–7 - "Police riot" in New York City's Tompkins Square Park
- August 8 - Thousands of protestors in Burma (Myanmar) killed during demonstrations against the government.
- August 9 - Wayne Gretzky is traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings in one of the most controversial transactions in hockey history.
- August 17 - Pakistan President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and US Ambassador Arnold Raphel are killed in a plane crash.
- August 19 - Ceasefire begins in the Iran-Iraq war
- August 20 - Iran-Iraq war finished, costing an estimated 1 million lives
- August 26 - Merhan Karimi Nasseri ends up stuck in the Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris
- August 28 - A fire destroys part of Chiado quarter, in Lisbon's historical center.

September

Lisbon.]]
- September 1- Acacia pycnantha proclamed Australia's national floral emblem
- September 3- Federal referendums on 4-year terms, recognition of local Government and other issues is defeated in Australia
- September 5 - With US$2 billion in federal aid, the Robert M. Bass Group agrees to buy the United States's largest thrift, American Savings and Loan Association
- September 12 - Hurricane Gilbert devastated Jamaica, it turns towards Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula two days later causing an estimated $5 billion in damage.
- September 17 - Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea open
- September 22 - Ocean Odyssey drilling rig suffers a blowout and fire in the North Sea. (See also July 6)
- September 29 - NASA resumes space shuttle flights, grounded after the Challenger disaster

October

- October 5 - Thousands riots in Algiers, Algeria against the government of National Liberation Front - by October 10 army has killed and tortured about 500 people in crushing the riots
- October 5 - Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is defeated in a national plebiscite that sought to renew his mandate.
- October 11 - Women are allowed to study at Magdalene College, Cambridge, for the first time. Male students wear black armbands and the porter flies a black flag
- October 12 - two officers of the Victoria Police are gunned down executional style in the Walsh Street police shootings in Australia
- October 19 - United Kingdom bans broadcast interviews with IRA members. BBC gets around this by using actors' voices.
- October 28 - Abortion: 48 hours after announcing it was abandoning RU-486, French manufacturer Roussel Uclaf states that it would resume distribution of the drug, bowing to pressure from the government of France
- October 30 - Philip Morris buys Kraft Foods for US$13.1 billion.
- October 30 - Expo '88 in Brisbane Australia draws to a close after a 6 month spectacular.

November

- November 8 - U.S. presidential election, 1988: George Herbert Walker Bush is elected over Michael Dukakis.
- November 11 - In Sacramento, California, police find a body buried in the lawn of 60-year-old boardinghouse landlady Dorothea Puente (seven bodies were eventually found and Puente was convicted of three murders and sentenced to life in prison)
- November 15 - In the Soviet Union, the uncrewed Shuttle Buran is launched by an Energia rocket on her maiden orbital spaceflight (this was the first and last space flight for the shuttle)
- November 15 - Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: An independent State of Palestine is proclaimed by the Palestinian National Council meeting in Algiers, by a vote of 253 to 46
- November 16 - The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR declares that Estonia is "sovereign" but stops short of declaring independence
- November 16 - In the first open election in more than a decade, voters in Pakistan choose populist candidate Benazir Bhutto to be Prime Minister
- November 17 - The Netherlands becomes the second country to get connected to the Internet
- November 18 - War on Drugs: US President Ronald Reagan signs a bill into law providing the death penalty for murderous drug traffickers
- November 21 - Canadian Federal Election: Brian Mulroney and the Progressive Conservative Party win a second majority government
- November 22 - In Palmdale, California, the first prototype B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is revealed
- November 30 - Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. buys RJR Nabisco for US$25.07 billion.

December

RJR Nabisco
- December 2 - Benazir Bhutto is sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of an Islam-dominated state.
- December 2 - Cyclone in Bangladesh leaves 5 million homeless - thousands dead
- December 7 - In Armenia an earthquake 6.9 on the Richter scale killed nearly 25,000, injured 15,000 and left 400,000 persons homeless.
- December 12 - The Clapham Junction rail crash kills 35 and injures 132.
- December 19 - The Consumer Product Safety Commission bans the sale of lawn darts following the deaths of three children.
- December 20 - The United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances is signed at Vienna.
- December 21 - Pan Am flight 103 is blown up by Libyan terrorists over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 259 on board and 11 on the ground.
- December 22 - Assassination of Brazilian union and environmental activist Chico Mendes.

Environmental change

- Zebra mussels found in the Great lakes

Unknown dates

- Dave Barry won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary.
- Singer Fish leaves the band Marillion to pursue a solo career.
- Mickey Sadoff elected president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Births

- January 17 - Nikki Reed, American actress
- February 4 - Carly Patterson, American gymnast
- February 7 - Ai Kago, Japanese singer
- February 8 - Ryan Pinkston, American actor
- February 18 - Rihanna, Barbadian R&B singer
- February 27 - JD Natasha, Latin music artist
- March 25 - Erik Knudsen, Canadian actor
- March 27 - Brenda Song, American actress
- March 28 - Lacey Turner, English actress
- April 10 - Haley Joel Osment, American actor
- May 2 - Brooke Hogan, American singer
- June 1 - Nami Tamaki, Japanese singer
- June 7 - Michael Cera, Canadian actor
- June 27 - Kate Ziegler, American swimmer
- August 8 - Princess Beatrice of York
- August 23 - Niki Leinso, Croatian singer and songwriter
- August 24 - Rupert Grint, English actor
- August 27 - Alexa Vega, American actress
- August 31 - Megan McCauley, American singer
- September 24 - Kyle Sullivan, American actor
- September 26 - Marina Kuroki, Japanese actress
- October 5 - Bobby Edner, American actor
- October 23 - Caleigh Peters, American singer
- November 15 - Zena Grey, American actress
- November 21 - Jamie Mahoney, American actor and rapper
- November 28 - Scarlett Pomers, American actress
- December 7 - Emily Browning, Australian actress

Deaths

- January 2 - Edmund Brisco Ford, British geneticist (b. 1901)
- January 5 - Pete Maravich, American basketball player (b. 1947)
- January 7 - Trevor Howard, British actor (b. 1913)
- January 11 - Pappy Boyington, American pilot (b. 1912)
- January 13 - Chiang Ching-kuo, President of the Republic of China (b. 1910)
- January 14 - Georgi Malenkov, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party (b. 1902)
- January 15 - Seán MacBride, Irish Republican Army leader, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1904)
- January 16 - Ballard Berkeley, British actor (b. 1904)
- January 20 - Philippe de Rothschild, French vineyard owner (b. 1902)
- January 22 - Parker Fennelly, American comedian and actor (b. 1891)
- February 1 - Heather O'Rourke, American actress (b. 1975)
- February 15 - Richard Feynman, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1918)
- February 19 - René Char, French poet (b. 1907)
- February 19 - André Frédéric Cournand, French-born physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1895)
- March 1 - Joe Besser, American actor and comedian (b. 1907)
- March 5 - Alberto Olmedo, Argentine comedian and actor (b. 1933)
- March 7 - Divine, American actor (b. 1945)
- March 8 - Henryk Szeryng, Polish-born violinist (b. 1918)
- March 9 - Kurt Georg Kiesinger, third Chancellor of Germany (b. 1904)
- March 10 - Andy Gibb, Australian singer (Bee Gees) (b. 1958)
- March 31 - William McMahon, twentieth Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1908)
- April 3 - Milt Caniff, American cartoonist (b. 1907)
- April 15 - Kenneth Williams, English actor and raconteur (b. 1926)
- April 23 - Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1904)
- April 26 - James McCracken, American tenor (b. 1926)
- May 3 - Lev Semenovich Pontryagin, Russian mathematician (b. 1908)
- May 8 - Robert A. Heinlein, American science fiction author (b. 1907)
- May 11 - Kim Philby, British spy (b. 1912)
- May 12 - Chet Baker, American jazz trumpeter (b. 1929)
- May 16 - Charles Keeping, British illustrator (b. 1924)
- May 18 - Daws Butler, voice actor (b. 1916)
- May 21 - Sammy Davis, Sr., American dancer (b. 1900)
- May 25 - Ernst Ruska, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1906)
- June 25 - Hillel Slovak, Israeli-born guitarist (Red Hot Chili Peppers) (b. 1962)
- July 8 - Ray Barbuti, American athlete (b. 1905)
- July 27 - Frank Zamboni, American inventor (b. 1901)
- August 8 - Ramon Valdez, Mexican actor (b. 1923)
- August 11 - Anne Ramsey, American actress (b. 1929)
- August 17 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr., American lawyer and politician (b. 1914)
- August 17 - Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, leader of Pakistan (b. 1924)
- August 27 - William Sargant, British psychiatrist (b. 1907)
- September 1 - Luis Alvarez, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1911)
- September 5 - Gert Fröbe, German actor (b. 1913)
- September 28 - Charles Addams, American cartoonist (b. 1912)
- October 1 - Sacheverell Sitwell, English writer (b. 1897)
- October 15 - Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, English composer and pianist (b. 1892)
- October 19 - Son House, American musician (b. 1902)
- October 22 - Henry Armstrong, American boxer (b. 1912)
- October 31 - John Houseman, Romanian-born actor and producer (b. 1902)
- November 9 - John N. Mitchell, U.S. Attorney General and convicted Watergate criminal (b. 1913)
- November 13 - Antal Dorati, Hungarian conductor (b. 1906)
- November 19 - Christina Onassis, American shipping magnate (b. 1950)
- December 2 - Tata Giacobetti, Italian singer and lyricist (Quartetto Cetra) (b. 1922)
- December 6 - Roy Orbison, American singer (b. 1936)
- December 21 - Nikolaas Tinbergen, Dutch ornithologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1907)

Nobel Prizes

- Physics - Leon M. Lederman, Melvin Schwartz, Jack Steinberger
- Chemistry - Johann Deisenhofer, Robert Huber, Hartmut Michel
- Medicine - Sir James W. Black, Gertrude B. Elion, George H. Hitchings
- Literature - Naguib Mahfouz
- Peace - The United Nations Peace-Keeping Forces.
- The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel - Maurice Allais

Templeton Prize

- Dr. Inamullah Khan

Right Livelihood Award

- International Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims / Dr. Inge Kemp Genefke
- José Lutzenberger
- John F. Charlewood Turner
- Sahabat Alam Malaysia / Mohamed Idris, Harrison Ngau, the Penan people.

Fictional references

- The 2001 movie Donnie Darko is set in October 1988 Category:1988 als:1988 ko:1988년 ja:1988年 simple:1988 th:พ.ศ. 2531

2002 in film

Events

- May - The Pianist directed by Roman Polanski wins the "Palme d'Or" at the Cannes Film Festival.
- Amélie from Montmartre directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet wins the 2002 Cesar Award for Best Film, Best Director, Best Music, and Best Art Direction.
- December - Star Trek: Nemesis, the tenth film in the successful film franchise, opens to poor box office and lukewarm reviews. It is later announced that this film is expected to be the final Star Trek film for the foreseeable future.

Top grossing films in the U.S.

Please note that these are the top grossing films that were first released in 2002; because they may have made most of their income in a later year, they are probably not the top grossing films for calendar year 2002. #Spider-Man (Sony) $403,706,375 #The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (New Line) $339,789,881 #Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (Fox) $302,191,252 #Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Warner Bros) $261,988,482 #My Big Fat Greek Wedding (IFC) $241,438,208 #Signs, starring Mel Gibson (Disney) $227,966,634 #Austin Powers in Goldmember, starring Mike Myers (New Line) $213,307,889 #Men in Black II, starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones (Sony) $190,418,803 #Ice Age (Fox) $176,387,405 #Chicago (Miramax) $170,687,518 24 films grossed over $100 million. Seven films grossed over $200 million, a new record.

Academy Awards

- Best Picture: Chicago - Loop Films, Miramax Films, Producers Circle
- Best Actor: Adrien Brody - The Pianist
- Best Actress: Nicole Kidman - The Hours

Births

Deaths

- January 13 - Ted Demme, 38, director
- February 15 - Kevin Smith, 38, television actor
- February 21 - John Thaw, 60, actor
- February 22 - Chuck Jones, 89, animator
- February 27 - Spike Milligan, 83, comedian
- March 27 - Milton Berle, 93, comedian
- March 27 - Dudley Moore, 66, actor/comedian
- March 27 - Billy Wilder, 95, filmmaker
- April 9 - John Agar, 81, actor
- April 16 - Robert Urich, 55, television actor
- April 22 - Linda Lovelace, 53, porn star (Deep Throat)
- June 5 - Dee Dee Ramone, 49, bassist/songwriter
- June 29 - Rosemary Clooney, 74, singer/actress
- July 5 - Katy Jurado, 78, Mexican actress
- July 6 - John Frankenheimer, 72, director
- July 9 - Rod Steiger, 77, actor
- July 23 - Leo McKern, 82, actor
- August 16 - Jeff Corey, 88, actor, television director
- August 18 - Dean Reisner, 83, screenwriter
- September 7 - Katrin Cartlidge, 41, actress
- September 11 - Kim Hunter, 79, actress
- September 14 LaWanda Page, 81, actress
- September 16 - James Gregory, 90, actor
- October 2 - Bruce Paltrow, 58, director
- October 10 - Teresa Graves, 54, actress
- October 25 - Richard Harris, 72, actor
- November 3 - Jonathan Harris, 87, television actor
- November 18 - James Coburn, 74, actor
- December 3 - Glenn Quinn, 32, television actor
- December 30 - Mary Brian, 96, actress

Other movies released

- 8 Mile
- 24 Hour Party People
- 40 Days and 40 Nights
- About a Boy
- Adaptation
- All About the Benjamins
- American Psycho II: All American Girl
- Analyze That
- Bad Company
- The Banger Sisters
- Barbershop
- Big Fat Liar
- Blade II
- Blood Work
- Blue Crush
- The Bourne Identity
- Bowling for Columbine
- Brown Sugar
- Cabin Fever
- Catch Me If You Can
- Changing Lanes
- City by the Sea
- Clockstoppers
- Collateral Damage
- Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
- Count of Monte Cristo, The
- Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, The
- Crossroads
- Darkness at High Noon: The Carl Foreman Documents
- Die Another Day
- Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
- Dragonfly
- Drumline
- Eight Crazy Nights
- Enough
- Equilibrium
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (20th anniversary re-release) 3/22
- FeardotCom
- Frida
- Friday After Next
- Gerry
- Gangs of New York
- Ghost Ship
- Halloween: Resurrection
- Hero
- High Crimes
- Hop
- The Hot Chick
- Igby Goes Down
- Insomnia
- Irréversible
- I Spy
- Jackass: The Movie
- Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie
- John Q.
- Juwanna Mann
- K-19: The Widowmaker
- Ken Park
- Laurel Canyon
- Like Mike
- Lilja_4-ever
- Lilo & Stitch
- Maid in Manhattan
- Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat
- The Master of Disguise
- Minority Report
- The Mothman Prophecies
- Mr. Deeds
- Murder by Numbers
- National Lampoon's Van Wilder
- The New Guy
- One Hour Photo
- Orange County
- Orion's Cloud
- Panic Room
- Possession
- Queen of the Damned
- Red Dragon
- Reign of Fire
- Resident Evil
- Return to Never Land
- The Ring
- Road
- Road to Perdition
- The Rookie
- The Rules of Attraction
- The Santa Clause 2
- The Scorpion King
- The Spanish Apartment (L'Auberge espagnole)
- Scooby-Doo
- Secretary
- Showtime
- Snow Dogs
- Space Station 3-D (IMAX)
- Speak to Me of Love (Parlez-moi d'amour)
- Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
- Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams
- Star Trek: Nemesis
- Stuart Little 2
- The Sum of All Fears
- The Sweetest Thing
- Sweet Home Alabama
- SwimFan
- The Time Machine
- The Transporter
- Trapped
- Treasure Planet
- True Colors
- The Tuxedo
- Two Weeks Notice
- Undercover Brother
- Unfaithful
- Vampires: Los Muertos
- A Walk to Remember
- The Way Home (Jibeuro)
- We Were Soldiers
- The Wild Thornberrys
- Windtalkers
- XXX
- Zvezda Film
- Category:Years in film ja:2002年の映画

Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh (Khmer: Mul script Image:PhPenh1.png; regular script 40px) is the largest, most populous and capital city of Cambodia. It is also the capital of the Phnom Penh municipality. Once known as the Pearl of Asia in the 1920s, Phnom Penh, along with Siem Reap, is a significant global and domestic tourist destination for Cambodia. Phnom Penh is renowned for its traditional Khmer and French influenced architecture, along with its friendly people. It is also the commercial, political and cultural hub of Cambodia and is home to 1 million of Cambodia's population of 11.4 million.

Geography and climate

Siem Reap Phnom Penh is located in the south-central region of Cambodia, at the confluence of the Tonle Sap and Mekong rivers. The city is located at (11°33' North, 104°55' East, [http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/cntry_files.html]). The climate is hot year-round with minor variations. There are three basic seasons: the cool season from roughly November to January, the hot season from roughly February through May and the rainy season from roughly June through October.

Naming

The city takes its name from the Wat Phnom Daun Penh (known now as just the Wat Phnom or Hill Temple), built in 1373 to house five statues of Buddha on a man made hill 27 meters high. It was named after Daun Penh (Grandma Penh), a wealthy widow. Phnom Penh was also previously known as Krong Chaktomuk (Chaturmukha) meaning "City of Four Faces". This name refers to the junction where the Mekong, Bassac, and Tonle Sap rivers cross to form an "X" where the capital is situated. Krong Chaktomuk is an abbreviation of its ceremonial name given by King Ponhea Yat which was "Krong Chaktomuk Mongkol Sakal Kampuchea Thipadei Sereythor Inthabot Borei Roth Reach Seima Maha Nokor"

History

Phnom Penh first became the capital of Cambodia after Ponhea Yat, king of the Khmer Empire fled Angkor Thom when it was captured by Siam in 1431. There are stupa behind Wat Phnom that house the remains of Ponhea Yat and the royal family as well as the remaining Buddhist statues from the Angkorean era. It was not until 1866 under the reign of King Norodom I that Phnom Penh became the permanent seat of government, and the Royal Palace(pictured) was built. This marked the beginning of the transformation of what was essentially a village into a great city with the French Colonialists expanding the canal system to control the wetlands, constructing roads and building a port. By the 1920s Phnom Penh was known as the Pearl of Asia and over the next four decades continued to experience growth with the building of a railway to Kompong Som and the Pochentong Inter