Queen Elizabeth II becomes longest reigning British monarch. She broke the record set by Queen Victoria, who ascended to the throne on June 20, 1837, and reigned for 63 years, 7 months and 2 days.

Manuel Noriega's sentence in the United States ends. Manuel Noriega, former military ruler of Panama, was released after 17 years of imprisonment in the US. He was imprisoned on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering, and racketeering.

Unix Billennium is Celebrated. Unix time or Unix epoch, POSIX time or Unix timestamp, is a time system that measures the number of seconds since midnight UTC of January 1, 1970, not counting leap seconds. At 01:46:40 UTC on September 9, 2001, Unix time reached the billionth second timestamp.

Tajikistan Declares its Independence from the Soviet Union. The Central Asian country had been conquered by Russia in the late 19th century. In 1929, the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic was created as a constituent republic of the Soviet Union. Independence in 1991 came after the collapse of the USSR.

Kim Il-sung Establishes North Korea. After the Second World War, the Korean peninsula had been divided across the 38th parallel. The northern part was occupied by the Soviets while the south was occupied by the Americans. The Cold War impeded unification and on October 9, 1948, Kim Il-sung declared the creation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea with the support of the USSR.