DAY 1 - Sept 15
* Cathy Freeman lights the Olympic flame
* The five Stadium torch-bearers are all women - Betty Cuthbert in her wheelchair, Dawn Fraser, Shirley Strickland de la Hunty, Shane Gould and Debbie Flintoff-King
* Basketballer Andrew Gaze leads the record Australian contingent into the Olympic Stadium
* The two Koreas march as one *
Bosnia-Herzegovina appears as a country for the first time
* East Timor's tiny contingent marches under the banner of the IOC
* Australian hockey star Rechelle Hawkes takes the athletes' oath
* The $50 million opening ceremony features 12,000 performers

DAY 2 - Sept 16
* Ian Thorpe wins two gold medals and claims two world records - in the 400m and the 100m freestyle relay
* Michael Klim sets a world record in his leg of the relay
* Australia's first medal of the Games - a silver - won by triathlete Michellie Jones
* First gold of the Olympics goes to American shooter Nancy Johnson in the women's 10-metre air rifle event
* Opening ceremony confirmed as Australian TV's most watched event, with 10.5 million viewers

DAY 3 - Sept 17
* Australia's Michael Diamond wins successive gold medal in men's trap shooting
* Inge de Bruijn of the Netherlands sets world record 56.61s to win the women's 100m butterfly
* Izabela Dragneva of Bulgaria wins the 48kg class to become the first woman to win weightlifting gold
* Olympic flag at half mast to mourn the death of IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch's wife
* Romanian weightlifting team expelled after three members return positive drug tests

DAY 4 - Sept 18
* Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband shocks Ian Thorpe to win the 200m freestyle gold, equalling his own world record of 1:45.35
* Two Romanian weightlifters threaten a hunger strike unless they're given new drug tests to prove their innocence

DAY 5 - Sept 19
* Susie O'Neill wins gold in the 200m freestyle
* Ian Thorpe, Michael Klim, Bill Kirby and Todd Pearson win gold in world record time in the 200m freestyle relay
* Andrew Hoy, Matt Ryan, Phillip Dutton and Stuart Tinney win horse riding's three-day teams event
* Unknown Eric Moussambani swims a famously slow 100m that earns him the nickname "The Eel" and turns him into a celebrity

DAY 6 - Sept 20
* Australian Archer Simon Fairweather wins gold
* Russell Mark blows a big lead in the double trap shooting, leaving the Atlanta gold medallist with a silver
* Pieter van den Hoogenband completes the 100m and 200m freestyle double

DAY 7 - Sept 21
* France's Marie-Jose Perec flees Sydney without competing
* Dutch swim star Inge de Bruijn wins the women's 100m freestyle
* Track cyclists Scott McGrory and Brett Aitken win gold

DAY 8 - Sept 22
* Americans Anthony Ervin and Gary Hall jnr produce the first shared gold in Olympic men's swimming history when they touch together in 21.98s in the 50m freestyle final
* Led by Andreea Raducan, Romania sweeps the medals in the women's allround individual gymnastics
* Bulgaria stripped of two more weightlifting medals and its team banned from international competition for a year after more positive drug tests
* IAAF doping chief Arne Ljungqvist accused American officials of covering up drug cases among its athletes

DAY 9 - Sept 23
* Grant Hackett dethrones Kieren Perkins as swimming's 1500m king
* Maurice Greene and Marion Jones capture the 100m sprint double for the US. Jones is stripped of her Sydney Olympic medals in 2009 after admitting to drug use
* British rower Steve Redgrave wins his fifth gold medal at his fifth Olympics, matching Hungarian fencers Aladar Gerevich and Pal Kovacs. Redgrave was later knighted for his feat
* Czech Jan Zelezny becomes the first man to win three successive javelin titles
* Australian women win waterpolo's first ever Olympic title with a last-second goal against the US

DAY 10 - Sept 24
* Naoko Takahashi becomes the first Japanese woman to win an athletic gold medal when she takes the marathon in 2:23.14
* Olympic precinct lights are turned off at midnight to try to discourage the invading bogong moths

DAY 11 - Sept 25
* Cathy Freeman takes gold in the women's 400m in front of an excited capacity crowd
* American Laura Wilkinson breaks China's 16-year stranglehold on the women's 10m platform diving event
* Kerri Pottharst and Natalie Cook defeat Brazilians Adriana Behar and Shelda Bede to win the women's beach volleyball gold for Australia
* Michael Johnson retains his 400m title

DAY 12 - Sept 26
* CJ Hunter, shot-putting husband of 100m queen Marion Jones, tests positive to steroids
* Diminutive Romanian gymnast Andreea Raducan was stripped of her gold medal after she tested positive to pseudo-ephedrine, a banned substance contained in a cold tablet she had taken
* Hossain Rezazedah of Iran sets a new world record in super-heavyweight weightlifting by hauling 472.5kg skywards

DAY 13 - Sept 27
* Australian Lauren Burns emerges from obscurity to win gold in the under-47kg division in taekwondo
* Venus Williams wins the women's singles but the Woodies fall to Daniel Nestor and Sebastien Lareau of Canada to take silver in an eventful day at the tennis
* Wrestling legend Alexander Karelin settles for silver to American Rulon Gardner, losing only his second competitive bout in 13 years
* Track and field legend Sergei Bubka ended his career in disappointment - failing to qualify for the pole vault final

DAY 14 - Sept 28
* Double gold for Australia on Sydney Harbour, with Jenny Armstrong and Belinda Stowell winning the 470 class, a feat matched by Tom King and Mark Turnbull
* Race leader Jane Saville is heartbreakingly disqualified only metres from the finish line in the women's 20km walk
* The US wins the baseball gold medal, upsetting hot favourites Cuba in the final
* Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov wins the men's singles tennis, defeating German Tommy Haas in five sets
* Marion Jones completes the second leg of the sprint double by taking out the 200m

DAY 15 - Sept 29
* Glory and heartbreak almost simultaneously for Australia on the hockey pitch, with the women winning gold for the third consecutive time by beating Argentina only hours after the men had lost a tense penalty shoot-out in their semi-final against the Netherlands
* Kenyan Noah Ngeny caused one of the Games' biggest upsets by beating odds-on and sentimental favourite, Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco, in the 1500m

DAY 16 - Sept 30
* Australia goes down to the US in the women's basketball final
* Cameroon upsets Spain to win the men's football gold medal 5-3 on penalties.
* The undefeated Cuban Felix Savon continues his amazing run by taking out his third consecutive boxing gold medal
* German Birgit Fischer takes her sixth kayaking gold medal in her fifth Olympics

DAY 17 - Oct 1
* Australia's men's basketball team, the Boomers, are defeated in the bronze medal match by Lithuania while the US easily defeated France to take gold
* Ethiopian Gezahgne Abera wins the men's marathon
* IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch calls Sydney's "the best Olympic Games ever" at the start of a spectacular closing ceremony

AAP