Milestones Dec. 30, 2002

INOCULATED. PRESIDENT BUSH, 56, against smallpox; in Washington. The President has called for all frontline military personnel and health-care workers to be vaccinated as well, citing the possibility of biological warfare. Bush is not yet recommending the shot, which carries rare but serious side effects, for the general public. One or two out of every million people inoculated will be killed by the vaccine, and 15 will face life-threatening complications.

CLEARED. ANTRON MCCRAY, 28, KEVIN RICHARDSON, 28, YUSEF SALAAM, 28, KHAREY WISE, 30, and RAYMOND SANTANA, 28; of their convictions in the savage 1989 rape and beating of a banker jogging in New York City’s Central Park, for which all have served prison time; after new evidence convinced the prosecutors that the sole offender was another man, Matias Reyes; by a New York Supreme Court judge.

APPOINTED. THOMAS KEAN, 67, moderate former G.O.P. Governor of New Jersey; by President Bush; as new head of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks; in Washington. Kean replaces Henry Kissinger, who resigned because the work would have required him to divulge clients of his private consulting business.

DIED. DICK STUART, 70, slugging first baseman nicknamed Dr. Strangeglove for his poor fielding; of cancer; in Redwood City, Calif. Despite his reputation as a fumbler, Stuart, who spent his most productive years with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Boston Red Sox, hit 228 homers in a 10-year career.

DIED. CHARLES FRASER, 73, pioneering developer of Hilton Head, the elegant resort community that was once a barely populated barrier island off the South Carolina coast; in a boating accident in the West Indies.

DIED. DOLLY DAWN, 86, one of the first big-band vocalists to take center stage; in Englewood, N.J. A key influence on singers such as Ella Fitzgerald, she was best known for appearances on CBS Radio–under the tag line Dance with Romance!–in the 1930s and ’40s.

DIED. FREDERICK KNOTT, 86, angst-ridden playwright of Dial M for Murder who wrote for money but hated the craft; in New York City. Dial M, a clever, tense mystery that focused on law enforcement’s attempts to break down the alibi of a man who has killed his wife, started as a TV special and later became a successful play and a 1954 Alfred Hitchcock film.