From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Timeline of events 2001-present
This is a timeline of the
21st century .
January 15 :
Wikipedia is launched.
January 20 :
January 26 : An
earthquake strikes
Gujarat ,
India , on
Republic Day , resulting in more than 20,000 deaths.
May 27 :
Dos Palmas kidnappings : Twenty tourists are abducted by the
Abu Sayyaf Group terrorists from a popular island resort in the Philippines.
June 1 : Eleven members of the royal family of
Nepal , including the king and queen,
are killed by Crown Prince
Dipendra , who wounds himself and dies three days later.
September 11 :
September 11 attacks : Nineteen
Al-Qaeda terrorists hijack four planes,
crashing
two into the twin towers of the
World Trade Center in
New York City , the
third plane into
the Pentagon in
Washington, DC , while the
fourth plane is downed on the outskirts of
Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania . 2,996 people, including 2,977 victims and 19 hijackers, die in the attacks.
October 7 –
December 17 : The
United States invades Afghanistan and topples the
Taliban regime , resulting in a
long-term war .
October 23 :
Steve Jobs introduces the first
iPod .
November 12 : Crash of
American Airlines Flight 587 .
December 3 :
Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after
a series of scandals .
December 11 :
China becomes a member of the
World Trade Organization .
December 19 –
20 : During an
economic crisis in Argentina , the government effectively
freezes all bank accounts for twelve months which
leads to riots and President
Fernando de la Rúa 's resignation from office. There are five "presidents" in less than a month.
The
al-Aqsa Intifada continues.
Dean Kamen unveils
Segway .
Media magnate
Silvio Berlusconi is elected
Prime Minister of Italy .
February 4 :
Facebook is formed by
Mark Zuckerberg ,
Andrew McCollum ,
Eduardo Saverin ,
Dustin Moskovitz , and
Chris Hughes .
March 11 :
Madrid train bombings killed 193 people and injured around 2,000, Europe's deadliest attack since
Pan Am Flight 103 .
September 1 –
3 : On the first school day in
Russia , a group of
Chechen
terrorists
held students, parents and teachers hostage in Beslan school , in
North Ossetia–Alania . During three days under attack, 334 people died.
October 23 –
27 :
Boston Red Sox wins the
World Series for the first time since
1918 , ending the
Curse of the Bambino .
November 7 –
December 23 : The
Second Battle of Fallujah occurs. It is the deadliest American battle since the
Vietnam War , killing 95 troops.
November 18 :
Massachusetts becomes the first
U.S. state to
legalize
same-sex marriage .
December 8 :
Union of South American Nations formed.
December 26 :
Boxing Day Tsunami occurs in the
Indian Ocean , leading to the deaths of 230,000.
NATO and
the European Union incorporates
most of the former Eastern Bloc .
War in North-West Pakistan begins.
Spirit and
Opportunity land on
Mars .
Orange Revolution in
Ukraine .
First surface images of
Saturn 's moon
Titan .
Tesla Roadster launched in 2008, the first mass production lithium-ion battery electric car.
February :
Euromaidan protest in Ukraine sparks a
revolution and the overthrow of
Viktor Yanukovych , leading to Russia's
annexation of Crimea and the
war in Donbas .
March 8 :
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappears from radar while en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. There were 239 people on board.
April 16 : The
MV Sewol sinks, killing 304 of 476 passengers, 250 of which were students at
Danwon High School .
May 22 : A
coup d'état in
Thailand overthrows the caretaker government.
June 19 : King
Juan Carlos I of Spain abdicates; his son becomes
King Felipe VI .
August 9 : The
shooting of African-American teenager Michael Brown by police leads to
violent unrest in
Ferguson, Missouri .
September 18 –
Scotland votes to remain
part of the
United Kingdom during the
2014 Scottish independence referendum .
November 12 : The
Rosetta spacecraft 's
Philae probe becomes the first to successfully land on
a comet .
December 16 :
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan
kill over 130 students in
Pakistan .
The worst Ebola epidemic in recorded history occurs in West Africa, infecting nearly 30,000 people and resulting in the deaths of 11,000+.
The
Yemeni Civil War begins after the
Houthi takeover in Yemen .
Persecution of Uyghurs in China in
Xinjiang increases.
Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 crashes into the
Java Sea , while
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 is shot down over Ukraine and
Air Algérie Flight 5017 is downed in
Mali .
Israel launches
an assault on the
Gaza Strip in response to
tit-for-tat
murder-kidnappings , leading to the deaths of 71 Israelis and 2,100 Palestinians.
ISIL begins
its offensive in northern Iraq , leading to
intervention in Iraq
and Syria by a US-led coalition.
Second Libyan Civil War begins.
Narendra Modi is
elected as the Prime Minister of
India .
Joko Widodo is
elected
President of Indonesia .
January 1 : Five
former Soviet Union countries form the
Eurasian Economic Union .
January 3 –
7 :
Boko Haram perpetrates
a massacre of over 2,000 people in
Baga, Nigeria , and allies itself with
ISIL .
April 2 :
Al-Shabaab perpetrates a
mass shooting in
Kenya , killing 148.
April 25 –
May 3 : The
death of an African-American man, Freddie Gray by police leads to
violent unrest in
Baltimore ,
Maryland .
May 13 :
Kentex slipper factory fire .
July 14 :
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement reached, setting limits to Iran's
nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
September 30 : Russia begins
air strikes against
ISIL and
anti-government forces in Syria
November 30 –
December 12 :
195 nations agree to lower
carbon emissions by negotiating the
Paris agreement .
A
series of terrorist attacks
occur in Paris .
A series
of earthquakes
in the Himalayas kills over 10,000 people.
The heads of China and
Taiwan
meet for the first time , while the
United States and
Cuba
reestablish full diplomatic relations .
Liquid water is found on
Mars .
First
close
-up images of
Ceres and
Pluto .
China announces the end of
One-child policy after 35 years.
European migrant crisis .
The
Supreme Court of the United States
determines that
same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry .
Homo naledi , a species of early human, is discovered in Africa.
Crash of
Germanwings Flight 9525 .
Volkswagen emissions scandal .
Charleston church shooting .
Assassination of Boris Nemtsov .
2015 FIFA corruption case .
February 11 : Detection of
gravitational waves by
LIGO confirmed.
March 9-15: Artificial intelligence program
AlphaGo
defeats top
Go player
Lee Sedol in a series of 5 games, winning 4 out of 5 games.
March 20 : Barack Obama becomes the first U.S. president to visit
Cuba since
Calvin Coolidge in 1928.
April 3 :
Panama Papers , a
leak of legal documents, reveals information of 214,888
offshore companies .
May 9 :
Rodrigo Duterte becomes
President of the Philippines , and initiates
a controversial drug war .
June 1 : The
Gotthard Base Tunnel , the world's longest and deepest
railway tunnel , is completed.
June 12 : A shooter
kills 49 people at a gay nightclub in
Orlando, Florida .
June 23 –
July 13 : The people of the
United Kingdom vote to
leave the European Union ;
David Cameron
resigns as a result, and
Theresa May succeeds him as the second female
Prime Minister of the UK.
July 4 :
Juno enters orbit around
Jupiter
September 4 :
Mother Teresa is officially
canonized by
Pope Francis .
November 4 : The
Paris Agreement , signed by 195 nations to fight
global warming , formally goes into effect.
November 8 :
Donald Trump wins the
2016 presidential election , in an upset against
Hillary Clinton , the first woman to be nominated by a major party.
The
United Nations lifts sanctions from
Iran in recognition of the dismantling of its
nuclear program .
Pope Francis and
Patriarch Kirill sign the
Ecumenical Declaration .
ISIL claims responsibility for
a series of bombings in Brussels ,
a massacre at
Istanbul 's
Atatürk Airport and car ramming attacks in
Nice .
Augmented-reality game,
Pokémon Go , is released, breaking records in revenue, and becoming the best-selling mobile game.
The
Colombian government signs a
peace deal with
FARC to end the
Colombian conflict , despite narrowly losing
a referendum .
The government of
Turkey begins a
series of purges in reaction to a
failed coup d'état attempt .
US troops withdraw from Afghanistan after 15 years.
The
President of Brazil ,
Dilma Rousseff , is impeached.
King
Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand dies after 70 years on the throne and is succeeded by his son
Vajiralongkorn .
Andrei Karlov , the Russian Ambassador to Turkey,
is assassinated at an art exhibition in
Ankara .
Tsai Ing-wen is
elected as the first female
President of Taiwan .
2016 attack on the Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran .
Radovan Karadžić is found guilty of 10 of 11 counts of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity during the
Bosnian War and is sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Dhaka attack kills 29 people.
A third set of locks in the Panama Canal opens for commercial traffic .
2016 Southern Taiwan earthquake .
An outbreak of the Zika virus is linked to a cluster of cases of
microcephaly .
Death and state funeral of Fidel Castro .
TikTok is launched.
January 20 :
Donald Trump is inaugurated as President of the United States.
January 21 : Millions of people participate in the
Women's March in response to the inauguration of Donald Trump.
February 13 :
Kim Jong-nam , the half-brother of
Kim Jong-Un ,
is assassinated in Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia.
May 13 :
Pope Francis canonizes
Jacinta and Francisco Marto , two of the three
Fátima children who reported seeing the Virgin Mary in the spring and summer of 1917.
May 22 : A
terrorist bombing attack at an
Ariana Grande concert in
Manchester, England kills 22 people and injures over 140.
June 2 :
36 people are killed in an attack in Resorts World Manila .
August 11 –
12 :
Charlottesville, Virginia becomes
the site of a far-right rally protesting the removal of
Confederate statues throughout the US. During the event, a white supremacist rams his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, injuring 19 and
killing one .
September : Two earthquakes strike Mexico on
September 8 and
September 19 , killing over 400 people.
October 1 :
60 people are killed in a mass shooting at a music festival in
Las Vegas .
October 14 : A
bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia kills 587 people and injures 316. It is one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in modern history.
October 28 :
'Oumuamua , the first known
interstellar object , is identified.
November 5 :
26 people are killed in a church shooting in
Sutherland Springs, Texas .
North Korea
tests a hydrogen bomb and conducts
a series of ballistic missile tests . The United States responds with a wave of export sanctions.
ISIL launches
simultaneous attacks in
Tehran , destroy the
Great Mosque of al-Nuri in
Mosul ,
Iraq , and
kill 311 in Egypt , but is declared defeated in Iraq by the end of the year.
A
military operation targeting
Rohingya Muslims in
Myanmar is declared
ethnic cleansing by the
UNHCR .
This year's Atlantic Hurricane season features
Hurricane Harvey , which kills 107 and becomes the costliest hurricane in US history, as well as
Hurricane Irma , killing 134, and
Hurricane Maria , killing 3,059.
Robert Mugabe is ousted in a
coup d'état .
Serb military commander
Ratko Mladić is declared guilty of genocide in the
Bosnian Genocide .
Allegations of sexual abuse against
film producer
Harvey Weinstein lead to a
wave of similar accusations from within
Hollywood and other areas of primarily the English-speaking world.
Grenfell Tower fire in London kills 72 and injures 70.
The
President of South Korea ,
Park Geun-hye , is impeached, while
Moon Jae-in
is elected
president .
Emmanuel Macron becomes President of France after defeating
far-right candidate
Marine Le Pen .
March 24 :
March for Our Lives occurs in 900 locations worldwide in response to the 14 February
Parkland shooting .
June 12 : The first summit between
the US and North Korea and the first ever crossing of the
Korean Demilitarized Zone by a North Korean leader occur.
June 23 –
July 10 : Twelve boys and their football coach are successfully
rescued from the flooded
Tham Luang Nang Non cave in
Thailand .
June 24 : Saudi Arabia
allows women to drive .
October 2 : Exiled
Washington Post journalist
Jamal Khashoggi is
assassinated inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, triggering a
diplomatic crisis for Saudi Arabia.
Turkey
invades northern Syria , while 70 die in
a chemical attack , triggering a
missile strike against President
Bashar al-Assad ’s regime.
Pakatan Harapan becomes the first opposition party to assume power in
Malaysia since independence.
Twenty-year
Eritrean–Ethiopian border conflict formally ends.
Yellow vests movement becomes
France 's largest sustained period of civil unrest since 1968.
The
Sunda strait tsunami kills 426 and injures 14,000 and the
2018 Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami kills 4,340 and injures 10,700.
Macedonia and
Greece reach a historic agreement in the
Macedonia naming dispute , in which the former is renamed in 2019 to the 'Republic of North Macedonia'.
China's
National People's Congress votes to abolish presidential
term limits , allowing
Xi Jinping to
rule for life . Xi is also the
General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party , the
highest position without term limits.
China–United States trade war begins.
2018 Armenian revolution occurs.
First post-ISIL election in Iraq .
The Trump administration reimposes
sanctions against Iran .
The first monkeys are
cloned , and first genetically modified humans reported, in China.
Four people are poisoned with a nerve agent, one fatally, in
Salisbury and
Amesbury , England in a suspected Russian assassination attempt.
The
northern white rhinoceros becomes
functionally extinct .
January 3 :
Chang'e 4 becomes the first object to land on the
far side of the Moon .
January 25 : Establishment of the
Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao .
January –
June : A
series of suicide bombings
occur in Sulu , Philippines.
April 10 :
April 15 : A major
fire engulfs
Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, resulting in the roof and main spire collapsing.
April 30 :
Emperor
Akihito of
Japan
abdicates from his
throne , the first abdication by a Japanese monarch in almost two centuries. The abdication ends the
Heisei
era of Japan and ushers in the
Reiwa era with new emperor
Naruhito ascending the throne on May 1.
August 5 : India
revokes the special status of Jammu and Kashmir .
October 18 :
NASA astronauts
Jessica Meir and
Christina Koch conduct the first all-female spacewalk outside of the
ISS .
December 18 : US President Donald Trump is
impeached by the
House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
December 20 : The
United States Space Force is announced by
Vice President
Mike Pence .
New Horizons takes the first close up image of a
classical kuiper belt object .
Christchurch mosque shootings kill 51 people, while a
suicide bombing in Iran kills 41, and a
series of bomb attacks in
Sri Lanka kills 250.
ISIL loses the last of its territory.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika resigns as
President of Algeria , while
Omar al-Bashir
is deposed as
President of Sudan in
a coup d'état amid
widespread protests
in both countries .
Victor Vescovo breaks the human depth record, reaching 10,928 m in the
Challenger Deep .
Protests begin in
Hong Kong over an extradition bill.
Wildfires spike in
Brazil , while
Australia endures the
most widespread brush fires in its history .
Isabelle Holdaway is the first patient to receive a genetically modified
phage therapy to treat a
drug-resistant infection .
Pope Francis abolishes
pontifical secrecy in
sex abuse cases .
The
2019–2020 dengue fever epidemic begins in
Southeast Asia .
Protests erupt in Bolivia
and Venezuela over
disputed
elections .
Nursultan Nazarbayev resigns as
President of Kazakhstan .
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev assumes power.
Astana is renamed
Nur-Sultan in his honor.
The EU
Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market is passed over intense opposition.
Bashar al Assad launches
multiple offensives
in Northwestern Syria ;
Turkey launches
an offensive into northeastern Syria .
More than a hundred people are killed after police and
Janjaweed attack protesters in Sudan.
The United States blames
attacks on ships in the Gulf of Oman on Iran, escalating tensions in the Persian Gulf.
Barisha raid ends in the
death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi .
A 6.4 magnitude earthquake in
Albania , kills 51 people.
More than 50 prisoners are
killed in a series of riots in
Amazonas , Brazil.
A trilateral gathering is held at the Panmunjom Truce Village between South Korean President Moon Jae-in, North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump .
Japan and South Korea trade dispute .
Sahar Khodayari dies after setting herself on fire after being arrested for attending a soccer game in
Iran .
Twelve Catalan independence movement leaders found guilty of sedition and misuse of public funds and they were sentenced to 9 to 13 years in prison .
Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu is indicted on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
January 2 : The
Royal Australian Air Force and
Navy are deployed to
New South Wales and
Victoria to assist mass evacuation efforts amidst the
2019–20 Australian bushfire season .
[2]
[3]
January 3 :
Qasem Soleimani is targeted and killed at
Baghdad International Airport .
January 8 :
Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 is shot down by Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) shortly after taking off from Tehran, killing all 176 on board.
January 16 –
February 5 : Donald Trump is acquitted by the
United States Senate in his first impeachment trial.
January 31 : The
United Kingdom
formally withdraws from the
European Union .
February 9 :
Bong Joon-ho 's
Parasite becomes the first
South Korean film to receive Academy Award recognitions at the
92nd Academy Awards .
May :
May 25 : The
murder of George Floyd sparks
protests across the United States and the world .
May 30 :
Crewed spaceflight
resumes in the United States for the first time since 2011.
June 16 :
North Korea demolishes the
Inter-Korean Liaison Office in
Kaesong , established in 2018 to improve relations.
June 30 :
China 's
National People's Congress
grants itself sweeping powers to
curtail civil liberties in
Hong Kong .
July 9 :
Protests begin in Bulgaria against the government of prime minister
Boyko Borisov .
July 10 : Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan orders the
Hagia Sophia in
Istanbul to be
reverted to a mosque following the annulment of a 1934 presidential decree that made it into a museum.
July 28 : Former Prime Minister of Malaysia
Najib Razak is found guilty of all seven charges in the first of five trials on the
1MDB scandal , being jailed 12 years and fined
RM 210 million as a result.
July 30 :
NASA successfully launches its
Mars 2020 rover mission to search for signs of
ancient life and collect samples for return to Earth.
August 4 :
An explosion caused by unsafely stored
ammonium nitrate kills at least 218 people, injures thousands, and severely damages
the port of
Beirut ,
Lebanon .
August 19 : The
Special Tribunal for Lebanon convicts
in absentia
Salim Ayyash , a senior member of
Hezbollah , for the 2005 assassination of former prime Minister Rafic Hariri.
August 25 :
Africa is declared free of wild
polio , the second virus to be eradicated from the continent since
smallpox 40 years previously .
August 26 :
Amazon CEO
Jeff Bezos becomes the first person in history to have a net worth exceeding US$200 billion, according to
Forbes .
September 14 :
September 16 : A
United Nations Human Rights Council fact-finding mission formally accuses the
Venezuelan government of
crimes against humanity , including cases of killings, torture, violence against political opposition and disappearances since 2014.
September 27 –
November 10 :
2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war between
Armenia and
Azerbaijan .
October 15 : President of Kyrgyzstan
Sooronbay Jeenbekov resigns from office after weeks of
massive protests in the wake of the
October 2020 parliamentary election .
October 20 : NASA's
OSIRIS-REx spacecraft briefly touches down on
101955 Bennu , becoming the agency's first probe to retrieve samples from an asteroid, with its cargo
returning to Earth in 2023.
October 22 : The
Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women's Health and Strengthening the Family is signed by government representatives from 34 countries.
October 23 : At the end of an 11-year
demining process, the
Falkland Islands are declared
free of land mines , 38 years after the end of the
Falklands War .
October 29 : The
International Organization for Migration (IOM) confirms the death of least 140 migrants who drowned off the coast of
Senegal on a vessel bound for the Spanish
Canary Islands .
November 3 : The
2020 United States presidential election occurs. Despite the pandemic, early voting and other factors result in the highest voter turnout since 1900, and a record of over 155 million votes cast. Although Joe Biden is declared the winner on November 7, Donald Trump leads an
unprecedented effort to prevent official recognition of his defeat, culminating on January 6 the next year.
November 3 : The
Tigray War begins in
Ethiopia .
November 15 : The
Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is signed by 15
Asia-Pacific countries to form the world's largest free-trade bloc, covering a third of the world's population.
November 19 : The
Brereton Report into
Australian war crimes during the
War in Afghanistan is released.
November 27 : Iran's top nuclear scientist,
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh , is assassinated near
Tehran .
November 30 :
Protein folding , one of the biggest mysteries in biology, is solved by
AlphaFold , an
artificial intelligence algorithm developed by
DeepMind .
December 1 : The
Arecibo Telescope of the
Arecibo Observatory collapses, just weeks after the announcement of its planned demolition.
December 2 : The
United Nations
Commission on Narcotic Drugs votes to remove
cannabis from a list of dangerous drugs in recognition of its medical value, although some controls will remain.
December 8 : Nepal and China officially agree on
Mount Everest 's actual height, which is 8,848.86m.
December 18 : Media outlets report that astronomers have detected a radio signal,
BLC1 , apparently from the direction of
Proxima Centauri , the closest star to the Sun.
December 21 : A
great conjunction of
Jupiter and
Saturn occurs, with the two planets separated in the sky by 0.1 degrees. This is the closest conjunction between the two planets since
1623 .
The
COVID-19 pandemic , which began spreading late in the prior year, spreads from China to the vast majority of the world's inhabited areas, infecting at least 81 million and killing at least 1.8 million people in its first year.
Fears of
COVID-19 cause the
Dow Jones Industrial Average to fall ten percent in one week, its largest drop in history, triggering the
COVID-19 Recession , the worst economic crisis since the
Great Depression .
The United States signs a tentative
peace agreement with the
Taliban .
Silurian
millipede
Kampecaris obanensis , the oldest known land animal, is discovered in
Scotland .
China and India engage in
border skirmishes , the largest escalation between the two powers in 50 years.
China launches
Chang'e 5 and becomes the third country after the US and the
Soviet Union to return samples of the moon.
January 1 : The
African Continental Free Trade Area comes into effect.
January 6 : Supporters of President Donald Trump, gathered after a rally led by him,
attack the United States Capitol , leading to five deaths.
January 10 :
Kim Jong-un is elected as the
General Secretary of the ruling
Workers' Party of Korea , inheriting the title from his father
Kim Jong-il , who
died in 2011.
January 13 : In
Lyon , France, the first
transplant of both arms and shoulders is performed on an Icelandic patient at the Édouard Herriot Hospital.
January 13 –
February 13 : Donald Trump is
impeached for a second time following the events of January 6, but is acquitted again after his
trial from February 9–13.
January 20 :
Joe Biden is inaugurated as President of the United States.
Kamala Harris , sworn in as vice president, becomes the first woman, first African American and first Asian American to be vice president.
January 22 : The
Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons , the first legally binding international agreement comprehensively to prohibit nuclear weapons, comes into effect.
February 13 –
17 :
Winter Storm Uri becomes the costliest winter storm in North American history, costing $200 billion and 237 lives, and triggering the
2021 Texas power crisis .
February 18 :
NASA 's
Mars 2020 mission (containing the
Perseverance rover and
Ingenuity helicopter drone) lands on
Mars at
Jezero Crater , after seven months of travel.
February 22 :
Luca Attanasio , the
Italian ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo , is
murdered near
Goma .
March 6 :
Pope Francis
meets with
Grand Ayatollah
Ali al-Sistani in
Najaf ,
Iraq . It is the first-ever meeting between a
pope and a grand ayatollah.
March 18 : The
Spanish Congress of Deputies passes the euthanasia law.
[4]
March 20 : Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announces his country's withdrawal from the
Istanbul Convention , the first country to do so.
March 21 :
Clashes in
Apure between Colombian
FARC dissidents and the
Venezuelan Armed Forces cause at least six casualties and displace 4,000 Venezuelans.
March 23 –
29 : The container ship
Ever Given
obstructs the Suez Canal for six days, costing an estimated $3.6 billion in global trade.
April 9 :
Buckingham Palace announces the
death of
Prince Philip , Duke of Edinburgh and husband of the
Queen , at the age of 99.
April 11 :
Hideki Matsuyama wins the
2021 Masters Tournament , becoming the first man from Japan to win a major golf championship.
April 13 :
Japan's government approves the
dumping of radioactive water of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean over the course of 30 years, with full support of the
International Atomic Energy Agency .
April 15 : Scientists announce they successfully injected
human stem cells into the embryos of monkeys, creating
chimera -embryos.
April 19 :
April 20 :
Idriss Déby , President of
Chad , is killed in
clashes with rebel forces after 30 years in office.
April 24 : Following an international search and rescue effort, the
Indonesian navy reports the sinking of
KRI Nanggala with 53 crew members, the largest loss of life aboard a submarine since
2003 .
April 28 –
May 1 : A
border clash between
Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan leads to 55 deaths.
May 6 –
21 : Hundreds
die in conflicts after
Israel
evicts six Palestinian families from
East Jerusalem .
May 23 :
Ryanair Flight 4978 is forced to land by
Belarusian authorities to detain dissident journalist
Roman Protasevich .
June 7 : The
Juno spacecraft performs its only flyby of
Jupiter 's moon
Ganymede , the first flyby of the moon by any spacecraft in over 20 years.
June 13 : Benjamin Netanyahu,
the longest-serving prime minister of Israel , is voted out of office;
Naftali Bennett and
Yair Lapid are sworn in as
Prime Minister of Israel and as
Alternate Prime Minister of Israel , respectively.
June 19 : Joe Biden signs Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law, making
Juneteenth a federal holiday. It is the first new federal holiday since
Martin Luther King Jr. Day .
[5]
[6]
June 24 : The Champlain Towers South
condominium in
Surfside, Florida ,
collapses , killing 98 people.
July 4 : 50 people are killed and 46 others are injured when a
C-130
transport plane of the
Philippine Air Force
crashes in
Jolo ,
Sulu .
July 7 : Haitian President
Jovenel Moïse , is
assassinated in a midnight attack by unknown mercenaries.
July 18 :
An international investigation reveals that
spyware sold by Israel's
NSO Group to different governments is being used to target heads of state, along with thousands of activists, journalists and dissidents around the world.
July 19 :
Blue Origin successfully conducts
its first human test flight , with a reusable
New Shepard rocket delivering four crew members into space including its founder Jeff Bezos.
July 28 : The first direct observation of
light from behind a
black hole is reported, confirming Einstein's theory of
general relativity .
August 9 : The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases the first part of its
Sixth Assessment Report , which concludes that the effects of human-caused
climate change are now "widespread, rapid, and intensifying".
August 14 :
An earthquake in Haiti kills over 2,000 people.
August 15 :
Kabul falls following the
2021 Taliban offensive , as the
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan collapses, and the country is governed thereafter by the
Taliban as the reinstated
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan . The
War in Afghanistan thus ends after 20 years following the
withdrawal of U.S. and coalition troops.
August 30 : The
UN Environment Programme announces that
leaded petrol in road vehicles has been phased out globally, a hundred years after its introduction.
September 7 :
El Salvador becomes the first country in the world to accept
Bitcoin as an official
currency .
September 14 : North Korea demonstrates two short-range ballistic missiles that land just outside Japan's territorial waters; hours later South Korea demonstrates its first submarine-launched ballistic missile.
September 15 :
A trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States is formed to counter Chinese influence. This includes enabling Australia to build its first
nuclear-powered submarine fleet.
September 16 :
Inspiration4 , launched by
SpaceX , becomes the first all-civilian spaceflight, carrying a four-person crew on a three-day orbit of the Earth.
October 3 : The
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and assorted media partners publish a set of 11.9 million documents leaked from 14 financial services companies known as the
Pandora Papers , revealing offshore financial activities that involve multiple current and former world leaders.
October 6 : The
World Health Organization endorses the first
malaria vaccine .
November 16 : Russia draws international condemnation following an
anti-satellite weapon test that creates a cloud of
space debris , threatening the
International Space Station .
November 30 :
Barbados becomes a
republic on its 55th anniversary of independence while remaining a member of the
Commonwealth of Nations .
December 9 :
A truck crash in
Chiapas ,
Mexico , kills 55 migrants who were being
smuggled in it from
Guatemala through Mexico to
its border with the United States .
December 16 –
18 :
Typhoon Rai lashes into
Visayas and
Mindanao , killing 409 people.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues, infecting more than 220 million and killing at least 3.6 million people in its second year. The true totals of infected and dead are estimated to be much higher.
Coups d'état occur
in Myanmar ,
Mali and
Guinea .
Russia begins a
military buildup on the Ukrainian border , warning
NATO not to intervene.
197 nations sign the
Glasgow Climate Pact , agreeing to limit the use of coal, and the
Netherlands legally mandates
Royal Dutch Shell to comply with the
Paris Agreement .
January –
September :
Coups d'état in Burkina Faso .
January 2 :
2022 Kazakh unrest .
January 4 : China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US—all
five permanent members of the
United Nations Security Council —issue a rare joint statement affirming that "a
nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought."
[7]
January 15 : The
Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai eruption and tsunami is the largest and most powerful volcanic eruption in decades, and the largest explosion ever recorded by modern instruments.
February 4 –
20 : The
2022 Winter Olympics are held in
Beijing , China, making it the first city ever to host both the
Summer Olympics and
Winter Olympics .
[8]
February 24 :
Russia invades Ukraine , escalating the
Russo-Ukrainian War , causing a
refugee crisis and tens of thousands of deaths on both sides.
March 20 :
WHL0137-LS "Earendel" imaged by
Hubble Space Telescope , the earliest and most distant known star.
March 15 –
November 14 :
Sri Lankan protests .
April –
November :
Pakistani constitutional crisis and
attempted assassination of Imran Khan .
April 14 :
Elon Musk
purchases
Twitter .
April 19 :
Kane Tanaka , the second oldest verified person to have ever lived, dies at the age of 119.
May 6 :
Monkeypox outbreak .
May 12 :
Sagittarius A* , supermassive black hole at Galactic Center, imaged by
Event Horizon Telescope .
June 12 –
September 12 :
Heat waves in Europe kill tens of thousands.
June 22 :
Earthquake in Afghanistan .
June 30 :
Ketanji Brown Jackson becomes the first black woman on the
Supreme Court .
July –
October :
United Kingdom government crises
July :
Oder environmental disaster .
July 8 :
Assassination of Shinzo Abe .
July 11 :
James Webb Space Telescope takes
Webb's First Deep Field , oldest and highest resolution image of the universe to date.
July 22 :
Chinese paddlefish declared extinct.
August 4 : China conducts its largest ever
military exercise around Taiwan in response to
a controversial visit by
Nancy Pelosi .
August 24 : "
Man of the Hole ", reclusive indigenous Brazilian and last of his ethnicity, dies.
August 28 :
Floods in Pakistan trigger an
economic crisis .
August 31 :
UN Human Rights Office report on Xinjiang is released.
September 8 :
Elizabeth II
dies at the age of 96 , and is succeeded by
Charles III .
September 16 :
Mahsa Amini protests .
September 25 :
Eliud Kipchoge sets marathon world record at the
2022 Berlin Marathon .
September 26 :
Double Asteroid Redirection Test demonstrates capabilities on asteroid
(65803) Didymos I Dimorphos .
September 27 –
30 :
Hurricane Ian impacts
Cuba and the US, causing catastrophic damage to both nations, killing at least 157 people, 16 missing, and leaving millions without power, including the entirety of Cuba.
October 1 : A fatal
human crush occurs during an association football match at
Kanjuruhan Stadium in
Malang Regency ,
East Java ,
Indonesia , killing 131 people and injuring more than 500.
October 6 : 36 people are killed in a
shooting, stabbing, and vehicle-ramming at
Nong Bua Lamphu ,
Thailand .
October 29 :
November 2 :
Ethiopia–Tigray peace agreement .
November 11 : The
FTX
cryptocurrency exchange files for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy .
November 15 : The world population is estimated to have
reached 8 billion .
November 16 : NASA launches
Artemis 1 , the first uncrewed mission of its
Space Launch System , the most powerful rocket ever to reach orbit.
November 26 :
COVID-19 protests in China .
November 30 :
OpenAI launches
ChatGPT , an AI chatbot.
December 7 :
Self-coup attempt ,
impeachment and arrest of President
Pedro Castillo sparks
protests in Peru .
December 9 :
Qatar corruption scandal at the European Parliament .
December 13 :
For the current year, see
2024 .
See also
References
^
"Sichuan earthquake of 2008 | Overview, Damage, & Facts | Britannica" . www.britannica.com . Retrieved 2024-03-26 .
^
"Military moves in to help mass evacuation from Australian bushfires" . CBC News . Retrieved 2020-11-15 .
^ Marnie, O'Neill (January 1, 2020).
"Half a billion animals perish in bushfires" . News.com.au .
Archived from the original on January 3, 2020. Retrieved January 3, 2020 .
^ Benito, Emilio de (2021-03-18).
"España aprueba la ley de eutanasia y se convierte en el quinto país del mundo en regularla" . EL PAÍS (in Spanish). Retrieved 2021-09-12 .
^
"Biden signs bill making Juneteenth, marking end of slavery, a federal holiday" . ABC News . Retrieved 2022-06-19 .
^
"Remarks by President Biden at Signing of the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act" . The White House . 2021-06-18. Retrieved 2022-06-19 .
^
" 'No one can win a nuclear war': Superpowers release rare joint statement" . The Sydney Morning Herald . 4 January 2022. Retrieved 4 January 2022 .
^
"2022 Olympics - Next Winter Olympic Games: Beijing 2022" . International Olympic Committee. May 28, 2020. Retrieved May 29, 2020 .
^
"WMO confirms that 2023 smashes global temperature record" . World Metereological Association. 12 January 2024. Retrieved 16 February 2024 .
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