2001

February

 * 6 - Fitz Kreiner travelled to Belgium and met Anji Kapoor and her boyfriend, Dave Young. They became embroiled in a Kulan plot. (EDA: Escape Velocity)
 * 8 - Fitz Kreiner met the Eighth Doctor at the St. Louis Bar and Restaurant in London. (EDA: Escape Velocity)

Unknown Dates
The following took place before February 6.
 * A highly advanced breed of Cybermen invaded the Earth en masse, but were defeated by the Eighth Doctor and Destrii. (DWM: The Flood)
 * Samuel Lloyd's parents died in a car crash. (SJA: The Mad Woman in the Attic)
 * Fitz Kreiner was dropped in London by Compassion to meet the Eighth Doctor at the St. Louis' Bar and Restaurant in London. (EDA: Escape Velocity)

January

 * BFA: Last of the Titans was first released as an exclusive CD with Doctor Who Magazine, the first of several DWM-exclusive audio dramas. It was also the first single-episode/short Big Finish Doctor Who story. The CD also included Episode 1 of BFA: Storm Warning.
 * BFA: Storm Warning was first released. This was the first Big Finish Productions audio drama to feature Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, beginning a long series of productions picking up where the 1996 TV movie left off. It marked the first appearance of his companion Charley Pollard.
 * BFBS: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Gods of the Underworld was first published.
 * 7 - Lorne Cossette, who played Captain Maitland in DW: The Sensorites, died.
 * 8 - EDA: Father Time was first published. It introduced Miranda Dawkins, the Doctor's adopted daughter, who subsequently starred in a comic book series.
 * 8 - PDA: The Quantum Archangel was first published.
 * 8 - BBC Audio released an audio recording of DW: The Myth Makers.
 * 15 - Wikipedia, a free-content online encyclopaedia, was launched, and within a few years became a dominant source for online information, eventaully leading to the creation of the Wikia websites which borrowed Wikipedia's format - one of which was the Tardis Wikia, launched in 2005. By the fall of 2001, articles on the Doctor Who franchise begin to appear on Wikipedia. Although not officially recognised as an influence by its founders, the concept of Wikipedia was often compared to that of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the repository of all knowledge which was conceived by erstwhile Doctor Who script writer/editor Douglas Adams.
 * 17 - Robert Robertson, who played Collinson in DW: The Ambassadors of Death, died.
 * 29 - DW: Spearhead from Space was released to DVD in the UK; discounting the multi-Doctor story The Five Doctors, this was the first Third Doctor story to be released in the format.

February

 * BFA: Sword of Orion was first released.
 * CP: The Cat Who Walked Through Time, a Doctor Who short story collection for charity, was first published.
 * 5 - EDA: Escape Velocity was first published, the sixth and final book in the Earth Arc. Fitz Kreiner rejoined as companion, and Anji Kapoor became a new companion.
 * 5 - PDA: Bunker Soldiers was first published.
 * 7 - Doctor Who Magazine published its three hundredth issue.
 * 26 - DW: Remembrance of the Daleks was released to DVD in the UK; it was the first Seventh Doctor story to be released in this format.

March

 * BFA: The Stones of Venice was first released.
 * CP: Missing Pieces, a Doctor Who short story collection for charity, was first published.
 * 5 - EDA: EarthWorld was first published.
 * 5 - PDA: Rags was first published.
 * 19 - Norman Mitchell, who played one of the policemen in DW: The Daleks' Master Plan, died in Downham Market, Norfolk, England.

April

 * BFA: Minuet in Hell was first released.
 * BFBS: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Squire's Crystal was first published.
 * 2 - EDA: Vanishing Point was first published.
 * 2 - PDA: The Shadow in the Glass was first published.
 * 2 - BBC Audio released audio recordings of DW: The Moonbase and DW: The Celestial Toymaker.
 * 17 - Terry Scully, who played Fewsham in DW: The Seeds of Death, died from a stroke in Wiltshire, England.
 * 27 - Tom Baker appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme Dead Ringers, where he encountered soundalike Jon Culshaw.

May

 * BFA: Loups-Garoux was first released.
 * CP: Walking in Eternity, a Doctor Who short story collection for charity, was first published.
 * 7 - EDA: Eater of Wasps was first published.
 * 7 - PDA: Asylum was first published.
 * 11 - Douglas Adams, writer of a few Doctor Who scripts and script editor of Season 17, died. He was best known for creating The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which has been referenced numerous times by the franchise.
 * 12 - Norman Kay, a composer of incidental music for Doctor Who, died.
 * 22 - Jack Watling, Doctor Who guest star and father of Deborah Watling, died.
 * 23 - The final episode of Star Trek: Voyager was broadcast in America.

June

 * BFA: Dust Breeding was first released.
 * BFDE: Dalek Empire I: Invasion of the Daleks was first released, launching the first of Big Finish Productions' Dalek Empire spin-off series.
 * 1 - Film cameraman Peter Sargent died.
 * 4 - EDA: The Year of Intelligent Tigers was first published.
 * 4 - PDA: Superior Beings was first published.
 * 18 - DW: The Caves of Androzani was released to DVD in the UK; discounting the special case of DW: The Five Doctors, this was the first solo Fifth Doctor story to be released in the format.
 * 28 - Joan Sims died.

July

 * BFA: Bloodtide was first released.
 * CP: LifeDeath, a Doctor Who short story collection for charity, was first published.
 * 2 - EDA: The Slow Empire was first published.
 * 2 - PDA: Byzantium! was first published.
 * 2 - BBC Audio reissued the 1979 audio version of DW: Genesis of the Daleks and the radio play BBCR: Exploration Earth on CD.
 * 2 - BBC Audio issued an audio recording of DW: The Abominable Snowmen.
 * 2 - DW: The Robots of Death was released to DVD in Region 4.
 * 3 - Delia Derbyshire, original arranger of the Doctor Who theme, died.
 * 13 - The BBC entered new territory with Doctor Who with the uploading of the very first original made-for-Internet story, the "pilot episode" of WC: Death Comes to Time, featuring the return of Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor and Sophie Aldred as Ace in what was basically a Big Finish Productions-style audio drama with limited animation. The series resumed in February 2002; ultimately thirteen instalments were released.

August

 * BFA: Project: Twilight was first released.
 * BFDE: Dalek Empire I: The Human Factor was first released.
 * BFBS: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Infernal Nexus was first published.
 * 6 - EDA: Dark Progeny was first published.
 * 6 - PDA: Bullet Time was first published.
 * 13 - DW: Doctor Who, the 1996 TV movie, was released to DVD in the UK.
 * 18 - Tom Watson, who played Ramo in DW: The Underwater Menace, died in St. Andrews, Scotland, from cancer.
 * 20 - REF: Doctor Who: Regeneration was published in paperback.

September

 * BFA: The Eye of the Scorpion was first released. A new audio-only companion for the Fifth Doctor, Erimem, was introduced.
 * 1 - KC: Occam's Razor was first released. This was the first in a series of audio dramas by Magic Bullet Productions in the Kaldor City series, based upon characters from DW: The Robots of Death.
 * 3 - EDA: The City of the Dead was first published.
 * 3 - PDA: Psi-ence Fiction was first published.
 * 9 - DW: The Five Doctors, The Robots of Death and Spearhead from Space were all released to DVD in Region 1 (North America). These were the first Doctor Who DVD releases in that part of the world, and began an ongoing series of releases by the North American arm of BBC Video (in conjunction with Warner Home Video) that continued into 2012.
 * 11 - The September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States took place. Though never explicitly stated to have occurred in the DWU they may be said to be vaguely implied in a couple of episodes. Donna Noble's reference to "Gitmo", UNIT holding Toshiko Sato without trial and warfare taking place in Iraq obliquely referred to some of the real world consequences of September 11. (DW: The Sontaran Stratagem, TW: To the Last Man, Fragments, SJA: Warriors of Kudlak) Nevertheless, these references alone are not enough to confirm that the real life September 11 attacks occurred in the DWU.
 * 26 - Brian Hawksley died.

October

 * BFA: Colditz was first released.
 * 1 - EDA: Grimm Reality was first published. This was the fiftieth novel in the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures series.
 * 1 - PDA: Dying in the Sun was first published.
 * 1 - BBC Audio released an audio recording of DW: The Daleks' Master Plan in a special edition that also included raw recordings of the episodes (without linking narration) and CD-ROM content including the scripts.
 * 15 - DW: Vengeance on Varos was released to DVD in the UK; this was the first Sixth Doctor story released in this format.
 * 18 - REF: Doctor Who: The Scripts 1974/75 was first published by BBC Books. This was an annotated collection of complete scripts from Season 12.
 * 26 - REF: Doctor Who: On Location was first published.
 * 31 - Jenny Laird, who played Neska in DW: Planet of the Spiders, died.

November

 * BFA: Primeval was first released.
 * BFDE: Dalek Empire I: "Death to the Daleks!" was first released.
 * REF: I, Who 2 was first published.
 * 5 - EDA: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street was first published.
 * 5 - PDA: Instruments of Darkness was first published.
 * 13 - Peggy Mount, who played the Stallslady in DW: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, died.
 * 21 - The first Wikipedia article on Doctor Who was uploaded. Over the remainder of the decade hundreds of articles on the franchise appeared on the user-generated reference website. The establishment of the "Wiki" format popularised by Wikipedia also gave rise to many topic-specific "wiki" websites, including the Doctor Who TARDIS Index File site on Wikia.
 * 23 - TN: Time and Relative was first published. This was the first release of a series of hardcover (later including paperback) novellas published by Telos Publishing and licensed by the BBC (which continued to publish full-length novels under its BBC Books line). Telos releases were limited in distribution and most would include deluxe editions with autographs.
 * 23 - Mary Whitehouse, a vehement critic of Doctor Who, died.
 * 29 - Former Beatle George Harrison, who appeared as himself in DW: The Chase, died from lung cancer in Los Angeles, California.

December

 * BFA: The One Doctor was first released.
 * 10 - Alan Fennell (the founder and original editor of the magazine TV Century 21) died.
 * 20 - Edward Evans, who played Ted Moss in DW: Image of the Fendahl, died.
 * 21 - Kevin Manser, who operated Daleks in numerous episodes of Doctor Who and also in the first Dalek film starring Peter Cushing, died in New South Wales, Australia, from cancer of the bowel.
 * 28 - This was the twentieth anniversary of the broadcast of KAC: A Girl's Best Friend, the pilot for K9 and Company.

Unknown dates

 * Bill McGuirk died.
 * Broadband internet became commercially available in some parts of the world. Broadband was one of the technologies that Henry van Statten claimed to have "created" on the back of scavenged alien technology. However the episode in question, Dalek (TV story), made no reference to a specific date, and therefore a real life 2001 date can't be said to exist in the DWU.