From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Clockwise from top-left:
Lehman Brothers went
bankrupt following the
subprime mortgage crisis ;
Cyclone Nargis kills upwards of 138,373 in
Myanmar and became the
7th-deadliest cyclone of all time ; the
2008 Summer Olympics are held in
Beijing ,
China whilst a
series of unrest in Tibet was occurring against the games; an
earthquake in
Sichuan kills over 87,000 and became the
18th-deadliest earthquake of all time ; a destroyed Georgian T-72 tank during the
Russo-Georgian War ; the Trident Hotel in
Mumbai was the site of the
November Mumbai attacks ; the
Phoenix spacecraft is the first probe to prove that ice water still exists on
Mars ; poster in
Pristina celebrating the
Independence of
Kosovo from
Serbia .
Calendar year
2008 (
MMVIII ) was a
leap year starting on Tuesday of the
Gregorian calendar , the 2008th year of the
Common Era (CE) and
Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 8th year of the
3rd millennium and the
21st century , and the 9th year of the
2000s decade.
Calendar year
2008 was designated as:
The
Great Recession , a worldwide recession which began in
2007 , continued through the entirety of 2008.
Events
January–February
March–April
March 2 –
Venezuela and
Ecuador
move troops to the Colombian border , following a Colombian raid against
FARC guerrillas inside Ecuadorian territory, in which senior commander
Raúl Reyes is killed.
[23]
[24]
March 8 –
Barisan Nasional loses
two-thirds majority , for the first time since
1969 , to opposition during the
2008 Malaysian general election but still retains control of government. The coalition also loses
majority control of five states to the opposition.
[25]
March 9 – The first
European Space Agency
Automated Transfer Vehicle , a cargo spacecraft for the
International Space Station , launches from
Guiana Space Centre in
French Guiana .
[26]
March 19 – An
Energy release of a
Gamma-ray burst called the
GRB 080319B is the
brightest event ever recorded in the
Universe .
[27]
March 24 –
Bhutan holds its
first-ever general elections following the adoption of a new
Constitution which changed the country from an
absolute monarchy to a multiparty democracy.
[28]
March 25 –
African Union and
Comoros forces
invade the rebel-held island of
Anjouan , returning the island to Comorian control.
[29]
April 29 –
Grand Theft Auto IV is released worldwide, selling over 3.6 million units and earning $310 million during the first day, becoming not only the highest grossing video game release of all-time, but also the highest grossing entertainment product release ever.
[30]
May–June
May 2 –
Iron Man is released in theaters, starting the
Marvel Cinematic Universe .
May 3 –
Cyclone Nargis passes through
Myanmar , killing more than 138,000 people.
[31]
May 12 – An earthquake measuring 7.9 on the
moment magnitude scale
strikes Sichuan, China , killing an estimated 87,000 people.
[32]
May 20 –
24 – The
Eurovision Song Contest 2008 takes place in
Belgrade ,
Serbia , and is won by
Russian entrant
Dima Bilan with the song "
Believe ".
May 21
May 25 –
NASA 's uncrewed
Phoenix spacecraft becomes the first to land on the northern polar region of
Mars .
[35]
May 28 – The
Legislature Parliament of Nepal votes overwhelmingly in favor of abolishing the country's
240-year-old monarchy , turning the country into a republic.
[36]
May 30 – International
Convention on Cluster Munitions is adopted in Dublin.
[37]
June 7 –
29 –
Austria and
Switzerland jointly host the
UEFA Euro 2008 football tournament, which is won by
Spain .
June 11
June 14 –
Expo 2008 opens in
Zaragoza , Spain, lasting to September 14, with the topic "Water and sustainable development".
[40]
June 14 – A
6.9 magnitude earthquake in
Iwate Prefecture ,
Japan , kills 12 and injures more than 400.
[41]
July–August
July 2 –
Íngrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages are
rescued from
FARC rebels by
Colombian security forces.
[42]
July 11 –
South Korea suspends all trips to
North Korea 's
Mount Kumgang after a 53-year-old South Korean tourist is shot and killed by a North Korean sentry.
[43]
July 21 –
Radovan Karadžić , the first president of the
Republika Srpska , is arrested in
Belgrade ,
Serbia , on allegations of war crimes, following a 12-year-long
manhunt .
[44]
July 21 —
The Dark Knight Is Released In Theaters
August 1
India and United States sign the historic
Civil Nuclear deal .
Eleven mountaineers from international expeditions die on
K2 , the second-highest mountain on Earth, in the
worst single accident in the history of K2 mountaineering.
[45]
August 6 – President
Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi of
Mauritania is deposed in a
military coup d'état .
[46]
August 7 –
Georgia intervenes against Russian-backed separatists in its
South-Ossetia and
Abkhazia regions, causing
Russia to invade Georgia and spark the
Russo-Georgian war , the first major European land war of the 21st century.
August 8 –
24 – The
2008 Summer Olympics take place in
Beijing , China.
[47]
August 20 –
Spanair Flight 5022 crashes at
Madrid–Barajas Airport , killing 154 people on board.
September–October
September 5 –
Quentin Bryce becomes the first female
Governor-General of Australia .
[48]
September 10 – The
proton beam is circulated for the first time in the
Large Hadron Collider , the
world's largest and highest-energy
particle accelerator , located at
CERN , near
Geneva , under the Franco-Swiss border.
[49]
[50]
September 13 –
Hurricane Ike makes landfall as a category 2 hurricane in
Texas , killing 113 and causing over $30 billion in damages.
September 15 – Stocks fall sharply Monday on a triptych of Wall Street woe:
Lehman Brothers ' bankruptcy filing,
Merrill Lynch 's acquisition by
Bank of America , and
AIG 's unprecedented request for short-term financing from the
Federal Reserve .
[51]
September 20 – A
suicide truck bomb explosion destroys the
Marriott Hotel in
Islamabad ,
Pakistan , killing at least 54 and injuring 266.
[52]
[53]
[54]
September 28 –
SpaceX
Falcon 1 becomes the world's first privately developed
space launch vehicle to successfully
make orbit .
[55]
[56]
October 3 –
Global financial crisis :
U.S. President
George W. Bush signs the revised
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act into law, creating a
700 billion dollar Treasury fund to purchase failing bank
assets .
[57]
October 6 – A controversial
Peruvian tape regarding a
Norwegian
oil company causes the
2008 Peru oil scandal , sparking
protests which cause
Jorge de Castillo to
resign from office .
[58]
[59]
[60]
[61]
October 21 – The
Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is officially
inaugurated at
Geneva .
[62]
[63]
[64]
[65]
October 22 – The
Indian Space Research Organisation successfully launches the
Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft on a
lunar exploration mission.
[66]
[67]
October 30 –
Floods affected in
Northern Vietnam and
Central Vietnam and lasted 5 days causing flooding in many
provinces and
cities .
October
The
Easyswap on-line local exchange trading system (LETS) website is officially launched in Switzerland.
[68]
November–December
November 1 –
Satoshi Nakamoto publishes "
Bitcoin : A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System".
[69]
November 2 – In a race won by
Brazilian driver
Felipe Massa ,
British driver
Lewis Hamilton ends in 5th place in
2008 Brazilian Grand Prix and becomes the first
black driver to win the
Formula One World Championship, and the second youngest driver to achieve the feat at the age of 23.
November 4 –
2008 United States presidential election :
Democratic U.S. Senator
Barack Obama defeats
Republican candidate
John McCain and is elected the 44th
President of the United States , making him the first
African-American to be elected to the office.
[70]
[71]
[72]
November 19 – Claudia Castillo of Spain becomes the first person to have a successful
trachea
transplant using a
tissue-engineered
organ .
[73]
November 20 – The
Buzzard Coulee meteorite falls in
Saskatchewan . Reported to be 5 times brighter than the full moon and is seen in Alberta, Manitoba, and even North Dakota.
November 26 –
29 – Members of
Lashkar-e-Taiba carry out four days of coordinated bombing and shooting
attacks across
Mumbai , killing 164 people.
[74]
November 27 –
XL Airways Germany Flight 888T . An
Airbus A320 due to be redelivered to
Air New Zealand stalls and crashes over
Mediterranean Sea resulting the deaths of 7
December 10 – The
Channel Island of
Sark , a British
Crown dependency , holds its
first fully democratic elections under a new constitutional arrangement, becoming the last European territory to abolish
feudalism .
[75]
December 11 –
Bernard Madoff is arrested for
securities fraud after he was turned in by his sons for operating the largest
Ponzi scheme in history, later known as the
Madoff investment scandal .
December 18 – The
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda finds
Théoneste Bagosora and two other senior Rwandan army officers guilty of
genocide ,
crimes against humanity and
war crimes and sentences them to
life imprisonment for their role in the
Rwandan genocide .
[76]
December 22 – An ash dike
ruptured at a solid waste containment area for a
Tennessee Valley Authority
coal-fired power plant in
Roane County, Tennessee , releasing 4.2 million m3 (1.1 billion US gal) of
coal fly ash
slurry in the largest industrial spill in U.S. history.
[77]
December 23 – A
military coup d'état deposes the government of
Guinea shortly after the death of longtime
President
Lansana Conté .
[78]
December 27 – Israel
invades the
Gaza Strip , in response to rockets being fired into Israeli territory by
Hamas , and due to weapons being smuggled into the area.
[79]
[80]
[81]
December 31 – An extra
leap second (23:59:60) is added to end the year. The last time this occurred was in
2005 .
Date unknown
Births and deaths
Nobel Prizes
New English words
See also
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^
United Nations General Assembly Session 61 Resolution 192 .
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^
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^
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External links