Timeline of the 21st century

2000s">2000s (decade)">2000s

[2001]

• September 11 attacks: Al-Qaeda terrorists crash planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. A fourth plane is downed on the outskirts of Stonycreek Township, PA. 2,996 people die in the attacks.
• An earthquake strikes Gujarat, India on Republic Day, resulting in more than 20,000 deaths.
• The War on Terror is declared by President Bush, in response to 9/11.
• The media magnate Silvio Berlusconi is elected Prime Minister in Italy.
• The United States invades Afghanistan and topples the Taliban regime. The result is a long-term war.
• The African Union is founded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
• During an economic crisis in Argentina, the government effectively freezes all bank accounts for twelve months which leads to riots and President de la Rúa's resignation from office. There are five "presidents" in less than a month.
• President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines is ousted.
• Steve Jobs introduces the first iPod.
• China becomes a member of the World Trade Organization.
• Wikipedia is launched.
• Eleven members of the royal family of Nepal, including the king and queen, are killed in the Nepalese royal massacre. The perpetrator, Crown Prince Dipendra, wounds himself and dies three days later.
• Dos Palmas kidnappings: Twenty tourists are abducted by the Abu Sayyaf Group terrorists from a popular island resort in the Philippines.
• Deaths of Aaliyah, George Harrison, Dale Earnhardt, Jack Lemmon, Carroll O'Connor, Anthony Quinn, John Lee Hooker, William Hanna, Robert Ludlum, Ken Kesey, Chet Atkins, Ray Walston, Mary Kay Ash and Isaac Stern.

  [2002]

• 2002 Bali bombings.
• The Euro first enters circulation.
• Riots and mass killings in the Indian state of Gujarat leave 1,044 dead.
• Israel starts Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank in response to a wave of Palestinian suicide attacks.
• Construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier begins.
• Chechen rebels seize a theater in Moscow.
• The International Criminal Court is established.
• America demands Iraq allow unfettered access to weapons inspectors.
• Guantanamo Bay detention camp is established.
• The Algerian Civil War ends.
• Beltway sniper attacks.
• East Timor gains independence.
• The First Ivorian Civil War begins.
• Brazil wins the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
• Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II.
• Deaths of Lisa Lopes, Waylon Jennings, The Queen Mother, Ted Williams, Chuck Jones, Dudley Moore, Milton Berle, Dave Thomas, Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, James Coburn, Rod Steiger, Robert Urich, Richard Harris, Ann Landers, Princess Margaret, Billy Wilder, Johnny Unitas and Bill Blass.
• Hu Jintao is elected as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China.

  [2003]

• The United States invades Iraq and topples Saddam Hussein, triggering worldwide protests and an 8 year war.
• War in Darfur begins.
• The Human Genome Project is completed.
• Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva becomes President of Brazil.
• The Second Congo War ends with more than 5 million dead.
• The Second Liberian Civil War ends.
• Space Shuttle Columbia is destroyed on re-entry.
• Rose Revolution in Georgia.
• The last Volkswagen Beetle is made in Mexico, after 65 years in production.
• 2003 Marriott Hotel bombing.
• The first six-party talks, involving South and North Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.
• Final flight of the SST Concorde, which was only one of two supersonic passenger ever put into service.
• Deaths of Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, Fred Rogers, John Ritter, Katharine Hepburn, Bob Hope, Barry White, Nina Simone, Celia Cruz, Robert Kardashian, Storm Thurmond, Gregory Peck, Charles Bronson, Maurice Gibb, Gregory Hines, Robert Stack, Buddy Hackett, Buddy Ebsen, Art Carney, Althea Gibson and David Brinkley.

  [2004]

• NATO and the European Union incorporates most of the former Eastern Bloc.
• Facebook formed by Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew McCollum, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.
• Union of South American Nations formed.
• Madrid train bombings.
• The Second Battle of Fallujah is the deadliest American battle since Vietnam, killing 95 troops.
• Orange Revolution in Ukraine.
• Beslan school hostage crisis.
• Boxing Day Tsunami occurs in Indian Ocean, leading to the deaths of 230,000.
• First surface images of Saturn's moon Titan.
• 2004 SuperFerry 14 bombing.
• Deaths of Ronald Reagan, Ray Charles, Marlon Brando, Julia Child, Rick James, Christopher Reeve, Rodney Dangerfield, Tony Randall, Bob Keeshan, Estee Lauder, Richard Avedon, Pat Tillman, Jerry Orbach, Janet Leigh, Isabel Sanford, Paul Winfield, Susan Sontag, Fernando Poe Jr. and Yasser Arafat.

  [2005]

• Irish Republican Army end military campaign in Northern Ireland.
• 7/7 attacks on London Underground.
• Angela Merkel becomes Germany's first female Chancellor.
• Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan.
• Second Intifada ends.
• Israel withdraws from Gaza.
• Cedar Revolution in Lebanon triggered by the assassination of Rafic Hariri.
• Second Sudanese Civil War ends.
• Hurricane Katrina kills 1,836 people in the Gulf of Mexico.
• 80,000 are killed in an earthquake in Kashmir.
• The Kyoto Protocol comes into effect.
• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad becomes President of Iran.
• Benedict XVI becomes Pope.
• Michael E. Brown discovers Eris.
• YouTube is founded by Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.
• Reddit is founded by Steve Huffman, Aaron Swartz and Alexis Ohanian.
• 2005 Valentine's Day bombings.
• 2005 World Summit.
• Peace Mission 2005.
• Wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles.
• Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.
• Michael Jackson was acquitted on all charges related to the alleged sexual abuse of a 13-year-old boy.
• Deaths of Pope John Paul II, Rosa Parks, Richard Pryor, Johnny Carson, Luther Vandross, Pat Morita, Arthur Miller, Anne Bancroft, Bob Denver, Johnnie Cochran, Hunter S. Thompson, James Doohan, Sandra Dee, Eddie Albert, Peter Jennings, Don Adams, Nipsey Russell, Ossie Davis, Shirley Chisholm, Prince Rainier III, Jaime Sin and William Rehnquist.

  [2006]

• Pluto is reclassified as a dwarf planet.
• Independence of Montenegro.
• 2006 Lebanon War.
• Mumbai bombings.
• Comprehensive Peace Accord ends the Nepalese Civil War.
• Ellen Johnson Sirleaf becomes President of Liberia, and thus Africa's first elected female head of state.
• The International Astronomical Union creates the first formal definition of a planet, and excludes Pluto from the list.
• Execution of Saddam Hussein.
• The Baiji, the Yangtze river dolphin, becomes functionally extinct.
• Twitter is launched.
• Former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko dies from poisoning in the UK.
• Nintendo launches the Wii.
• 2006 Southern Leyte mudslide.
• Guimaras oil spill.
• Murder of Altantuya Shaaribuu: The Mongolian model was murdered in Malaysia.
• Italy wins 2006 FIFA World Cup.
• A coup d'état in Thailand overthrows the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
• Deaths of Steve Irwin, James Brown, Don Knotts, Gerald Ford, Coretta Scott King, Peter Boyle, Lou Rawls, Betty Friedan, Kirby Puckett, Aaron Spelling, Joseph Barbera, Shelley Winters, Jack Palance, Robert Altman, Red Buttons, Ann Richards, Wilson Pickett, Gordon Parks and Ed Bradley.

  [2007]

• Anti-government protests in Myanmar suppressed by ruling junta.
• Spike in food prices and subprime crisis help trigger global recession.
• Assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
• Gordon Brown becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• First Ivorian Civil War ends.
• Introduction of the iPhone.
• Virginia Tech shooting.
• Manila Peninsula siege.
• Deaths of Anna Nicole Smith, Luciano Pavarotti, Ike Turner, Evel Knievel, Lady Bird Johnson, Boris Yeltsin, Merv Griffin, Kurt Vonnegut, Tammy Faye Messner, Phil Rizzuto, Jerry Falwell, Liz Claiborne, Oscar Peterson, Don Ho, Robert Goulet, Deborah Kerr, Charles Nelson Reilly, Ingmar Bergman, Marcel Marceau and Norman Mailer.

  [2008]

• Stock markets plunge around the world, signaling the start of the Great Recession.
• End of Monarchy in Nepal.
• Google Chrome is released.
• Barack Obama is elected as President of the United States.
• Dmitry Medvedev becomes President of Russia.
• Cyclone Nargis kills 133,000 in Myanmar.
• Gaza War begins.
• 2008 South Ossetia war.
• The 2008 Summer Olympic was hosted in Beijing, China.
• Kosovo declares independence, to mixed reaction.
• Iraqi forces crack down on Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi forces in Basra and Sadr City.
• 2008 Mumbai attacks.
• The Large Hadron Collider is completed as the world's largest and most powerful particle collider.
• Sinking of MV Princess of the Stars.
• Deaths of Heath Ledger, Bernie Mac, Paul Newman, Estelle Getty, Yves Saint Laurent, Sir Edmund Hillary, George Carlin, Charlton Heston, Eartha Kitt, Roy Scheider, Isaac Hayes, Bettie Page, Suzanne Pleshette, Bo Diddley, Michael Crichton, Tim Russert, Sydney Pollack, Arthur C. Clarke, Bobby Fischer, David Foster Wallace, Mark Felt and William F. Buckley.

  [2009]

• The cryptocurrency Bitcoin is launched.
• Gaza War ends while Gaza blockade continues.
• The Sri Lankan Civil War ends.
• Election protests begin in Iran.
• Second Chechen War ends.
• Boko Haram rebellion begins in Nigeria.
• Construction of the world's tallest skyscraper Burj Khalifa is completed in Dubai.
• Formation of BRICS economic bloc.
• Treaty of Lisbon ratified.
• 2009 swine flu pandemic began in North America.
• Former Philippine president Corazon Aquino dies of colon cancer.
• Typhoon Ketsana causes widespread damages in the Philippines.
• 58 people are abducted and killed in the province of Maguindanao.
• Deaths of Michael Jackson, Patrick Swayze, Brittany Murphy, Billy Mays, Farrah Fawcett, Bea Arthur, Natasha Richardson, John Hughes, Les Paul, Ted Kennedy, Walter Cronkite, Ricardo Montalban, Dom DeLuise, David Carradine, Ed McMahon, Soupy Sales, John Updike, Mary Travers, Paul Harvey, Oral Roberts, Francis Magalona, Eraño Manalo and Frank McCourt.

  [2010s]

[2010]

• After the 2010 United Kingdom general election, David Cameron becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• A military crackdown occurs in Thailand
• Benigno Aquino III is elected as the 15th President of the Philippines.
• A 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti kills 230,000.
• The threat of Greece defaulting on its debts triggers the European sovereign debt crisis and Republic of Ireland's financial crisis.
• The largest oil spill in US history occurs in the Gulf of Mexico.
• North Korea shells the island of Yeonpyeong.
• Burmese political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi is released from house arrest.
• The FIFA world cup is held in Africa for the first time.
• 2010 Moscow Metro bombings.
• Arab Spring starts.
• Kyrgyz Revolution of 2010.
• 2010 Nigerien coup d'état.
• The President of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, is among 96 killed when their airplane crashes in Smolensk on April 10.
• The Burj Khalifa located in Dubai opened to the public and stood as the tallest structure in the world, standing at 829.8 m.
• Dilma Rousseff is elected as the first female president of Brazil.
• The iPad is introduced.
• Instagram is launched.
• Manila hostage crisis.
• 2010 Colombia–Venezuela diplomatic crisis.
• 2010 Copiapó mining accident.
• 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull.
• Julia Gillard is elected Prime Minister of Australia.
• Deaths of Corey Haim, Gary Coleman, Rue McClanahan, Alexander McQueen, Lena Horne, Leslie Nielsen, Tony Curtis, George Steinbrenner, Dennis Hopper, Peter Graves, Patricia Neal, J.D. Salinger, and Tom Bosley.

  [2011]

• Independence of South Sudan.
• Snapchat launched.
• February Christchurch earthquake kills 185 and injures 2,000.
• Arab Spring: revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya follow, as well as uprisings in Yemen and Bahrain, and protests in several other Arab countries.
• Syrian civil war begins.
• Second Ivorian Civil War.
• Occupy movement inspires worldwide protests.
• News International phone hacking scandal.
• A 9.0 earthquake in Japan triggers a tsunami and the meltdown of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.
• The Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge, the world's longest, opens in China.
• Second Ivorian Civil War ends with the arrest of former president Laurent Gbagbo.
• Iraq War ends.
• Riots flare across England.
• Bombings occur in Russia and Somalia.
• World population reaches 7 Billion.
• Floods in Pakistan, Thailand and the Philippines kill roughly 2,500 people.
• Osama bin Laden is shot dead by United States Navy SEALs in Pakistan.
• 2011 Norway attacks.
• Muammar Gaddafi is captured and killed during the Battle of Sirte.
• Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.
• Space Shuttle program is officially ended.
• Amazon Rainforest and River, Hạ Long Bay, Jeju Island, Iguazú Falls, Puerto Princesa Underground River, Komodo Island and Table Mountain were named as the world's New7Wonders of Nature.
• Deaths of Steve Jobs, Kim Jong-il, Amy Winehouse, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Falk, Jane Russell, James Arness, Betty Ford, Randy Savage, Angelo Reyes and Andy Rooney.

  [2012]

• Northern Mali conflict, the MNLA declares Azawad an independent state.
• Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh steps down.
• 2012 Benghazi attack leads to the death of US ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
• Shenouda III, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, departs; Tawadros II succeeds him.
• The Higgs boson is discovered.
• Vladimir Putin is elected president of Russia for the third time.
• Hurricane Sandy kills 209 people in North America, while Typhoon Bopha kills over 1,600 in the Philippines.
• Skydiver Felix Baumgartner becomes the first person to break the sound barrier without a vehicle.
• Conflict begins in the Central African Republic.
• UN Climate Change Conference agrees to extend the Kyoto Protocol until 2020.
• Israel launches Operation Pillar of Defense against the Palestinian-governed Gaza Strip.
• 2012 Guinea-Bissau coup d'état.
• The US rover, Curiosity, takes a selfie on Mars.
• Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
• 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting.
• Costa Concordia disaster.
• Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II.
• Impeachment of Renato Corona.
• Pakistani Taliban attempt to assassinate outspoken schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai.
• The 2012 Summer Olympics was hosted in London, United Kingdom.
• Deaths of Whitney Houston, Neil Armstrong, Andy Griffith, Dick Clark, Donna Summer, Etta James, Robin Gibb, Sally Ride, Michael Clarke Duncan, Sherman Hemsley, Ernest Borgnine, Davy Jones, Phyllis Diller, Larry Hagman, Ray Bradbury, Gore Vidal, Maurice Sendak, Mike Wallace, Adam Yauch, Rodney King, Dave Brubeck, Ravi Shankar, Jack Klugman, Andy Williams, Richard Dawson, Charles Durning, Ben Gazzara, Celeste Holm, Tony Scott, Dolphy, Yitzhak Shamir, Jesse Robredo and Don Cornelius.
• Xi Jinping is elected as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China.

  [2013]

• The French military intervenes in the Northern Mali conflict.
• Chelyabinsk meteor.
• Pope Benedict XVI resigns and Pope Francis is elected, becoming the first Pope from Latin America.
• Terrorist attacks occur in Boston and Nairobi.
• The Rana Plaza collapses in Bangladesh.
• Edward Snowden releases classified documents concerning mass surveillance by the NSA.
• President of Egypt Mohamed Morsi is deposed by the military in a coup d'état.
• Croatia becomes a member of the European Union.
• The Euromaidan protest begins in Ukraine.
• A chemical attack in Ghouta, Syria is blamed on President Bashar al-Assad.
• A 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Bohol, kills 222.
• Typhoon Haiyan kills nearly 6,150 people in the Philippines and Vietnam.
• Conflict begins in South Sudan.
• Uruguay becomes the first country to fully legalize cannabis.
• End of 2012–2013 Cypriot financial crisis.
• Zamboanga City crisis.
• Kiss nightclub fire.
• 2013 Alberta floods.
• 2013 Lahad Datu standoff.
• Guang Da Xing No. 28 incident.
• Deaths of Nelson Mandela, Margaret Thatcher, Hugo Chavez, Paul Walker, Cory Monteith, James Gandolfini, Annette Funicello, Bonnie Franklin, Peter O'Toole, Roger Ebert, Vo Nguyen Giap, Mindy McCready, Tom Clancy, Dennis Farina, Marcia Wallace, Jean Stapleton, Jonathan Winters, Joan Fontaine, Esther Williams, Lou Reed and George Jones.

  [2014]

• The worst Ebola epidemic in recorded history occurs in West Africa, infecting nearly 30,000 people and resulting in the deaths of 11,000+.
• Euromaidan protest in Ukraine sparks a revolution and the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych, leading to Russia's annexation of Crimea and the War in Donbass.
• Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappears from radar while en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8. There were 239 people on board.
• A coup d'état in Thailand overthrows the caretaker government.
• King Juan Carlos I of Spain abdicates; his son becomes King Felipe VI.
• 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.
• Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan kill over 130 students in Pakistan.
• 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.
• ISIS begins its offensive in northern Iraq, leading to intervention in Iraq and Syria by a US-led coalition.
• Second Libyan Civil War begins.
• The Rosetta spacecraft's Philae probe becomes the first to successfully land on a comet.
• Joko Widodo is elected President of Indonesia.
• Sinking of MV Sewol.
• Yeonmi Park delivers an emotional speech at the 2014 One Young World Summit.
• The Philippines and Indonesia signed a maritime treaty that draws the boundary in Mindanao and Celebes seas.
• Doha, Durban, Havana, Kuala Lumpur, La Paz and Vigan were chosen as the world's New7Wonders Cities.
• Deaths of Robin Williams, Maya Angelou, Shirley Temple, Joan Rivers, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Mickey Rooney, James Garner, Casey Kasem, Lauren Bacall, Richard Attenborough, Harold Ramis, Sid Caesar, Pete Seeger, Joe Cocker, Bob Hoskins, Ann B. Davis, Ralph Waite, Ruby Dee, Oscar de la Renta, Ariel Sharon and Mike Nichols.

  [2015]

• Five former Soviet Union countries form the Eurasian Economic Union.
• A series of terrorist attacks occur in Paris.
• Boko Haram perpetrates a massacre of over 2,000 people in Baga, Nigeria, and allies itself with ISIL.
• Al-Shabaab perpetrates a mass shooting in Kenya, killing 148.
• Houthis overthrow the government in Yemen, triggering a military response by Saudi Arabia.
• A series of earthquakes in the Himalayas kills over 10,000 people.
• ISIL claims responsibility for the Kobanî massacre in Syria, the Sousse attacks in Tunisia, a mosque bombing in Kuwait, the Suruç bombing in Turkey, multiple bombings in Beirut and a massacre in Paris, as well as the bombing of a Russian Airliner over Egypt. They also inspire a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California.
• Turkey and Russia intervene in the Syrian Civil War.
• The heads of China and Taiwan meet for the first time, while the United States and Cuba resume diplomatic relations.
• 195 nations agree to lower carbon emissions.
• Liquid water is found on Mars.
• First close-up images of Ceres and Pluto.
• Charleston church shooting.
• Assassination of Boris Nemtsov.
• China announces the end of One-child policy after 35 years.
• 2015 FIFA corruption case.
• European migrant crisis.
• The Supreme Court of the United States determines that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.
• Pope Francis's visit to the Philippines.
• Mamasapano clash.
• Kentex slipper factory fire.
• The opposition-led Democratic Unity Roundtable wins the most seats in the 2015 Venezuelan parliamentary election, defeating the United Socialist Party of Venezuela for the first time since the National Assembly was established in 1999.
• Deaths of Leonard Nimoy, B.B. King, Christopher Lee, Yogi Berra, Bob Simon, Frank Gifford, John Forbes Nash Jr., Wes Craven, Jackie Collins, Natalie Cole, Sam Simon, Scott Weiland, Omar Sharif, Dick Van Patten, Maureen O'Hara, Robert Loggia, Anne Meara, Ben E. King, Lesley Gore, Lee Kuan Yew, Rizzini Alexis Gomez, Letty Jimenez Magsanoc and James Horner.

  [2016]

• An outbreak of the Zika virus is linked to a cluster of cases of microcephaly.
• The United Nations lifts sanctions on Iran in recognition of its dismantling of its nuclear program.
• ISIL claims responsibility for a series of bombings in Brussels, a massacre at Istanbul's Atatürk Airport and car ramming attacks in Nice and Berlin.
• The Gotthard Base Tunnel, the world's longest railway tunnel, is completed.
• The people of the United Kingdom vote to leave the European Union; Theresa May becomes Prime Minister.
• Donald Trump is elected President of the United States.
• The Colombian government signs a peace deal with FARC despite losing a referendum.
• United States troops withdraw from Afghanistan after 15 years.
• The President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, is impeached.
• Vajiralongkorn becomes King of Thailand.
• The government of Turkey begins a series of purges in reaction to a failed coup d'état attempt.
• Rodrigo Duterte becomes President of the Philippines, and initiates a controversial drug war.
• Philippines wins the arbitration case against China.
• Andrei Karlov, the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, is assassinated at an art exhibition in Ankara.
• Detection of gravitational waves by LIGO confirmed.
• Dhaka attack kills 29 people.
• A shooter kills 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
• 2016 Southern Taiwan earthquake.
• Tsai Ing-wen is elected President of Taiwan.
• 2016 attack on the Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran.
• 2016 Russian Defence Ministry Tupolev Tu-154 crash.
• Burial of Ferdinand Marcos.
• Radovan Karadžić found guilty of 10 of 11 counts of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity and is sentenced to 40 years in prison.
• Deaths of Prince, Muhammad Ali, David Bowie, Carrie Fisher, Alan Rickman, George Michael, Debbie Reynolds, Gene Wilder, Fidel Castro, Nancy Reagan, Harper Lee, Anton Yelchin, Alan Thicke, Arnold Palmer, John Glenn, Florence Henderson, Doris Roberts, Elie Wiesel, Merle Haggard, Leonard Cohen, Garry Marshall, Garry Shandling, Abe Vigoda, Patty Duke, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Gwen Ifill, Morley Safer, Christina Grimmie, German Moreno, Miriam Defensor Santiago, Bhumibol Adulyadej, Shimon Peres, and Antonin Scalia.

  [2017]

• Tensions between North Korea and the UN escalate as the country tests a hydrogen bomb and conducts a series of ballistic missile tests. The UN responds with a wave of export sanctions.
• A terrorist bombing attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England kills 22 people and injures over 500.
• Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant launch simultaneous attacks in Tehran, destroy the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul Iraq, and kill 311 in Egypt, but are 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.
• A bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia on October 14, kills 587 people and injures 316. It is one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in modern history.
• Hurricane Harvey kills 107 and becomes the costliest hurricane in US history, while Hurricane Irma kills 134, and Hurricane Maria kills 3,059.
• Two earthquakes strike Mexico on 7 September and 19 September, killing more than 350.
• Kurdistan and Catalonia declare independence from Iraq and Spain, respectively. Catalonia is not recognised, and Iraq engages the Kurds in conflict.
• Robert Mugabe is ousted in a coup d'état, while Ratko Mladić is declared guilty of genocide.
• The city of Charlottesville is 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.
• 58 people are killed in a mass shooting in Las Vegas.
• 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.
• Nintendo launches the Nintendo Switch.
• Grenfell Tower fire in London kills 72 and injures 70.
• 'Oumuamua, the first known interstellar object, is identified.
• Martial law declared in Mindanao following clashes between government forces and the Maute group in Marawi.
• 36 people are killed in an attack in Resorts World Manila.
• The President of South Korea, Park Geun-hye, is impeached.
• A constitutional crisis occurs in Venezuela after Constituent Assembly elections which replaced the legislative powers held by the opposition-led National Assembly.
• Deaths of Chester Bennington, Chuck Berry, Chris Cornell, Tom Petty, Mary Tyler Moore, Glen Campbell, John Hurt, Roger Moore, Erin Moran, Jerry Lewis, Bill Paxton, Don Rickles, Sam Shepard, Fats Domino, Adam West, Hugh Hefner, Dick Gregory, David Cassidy, Jim Nabors, Martin Landau, Harry Dean Stanton, Manuel Noriega, Lil Peep, Della Reese, Jake LaMotta, Monty Hall, George A. Romero, Ricardo Vidal, Isabel Granada and Kim Jong-hyun.

  [2018]

• Turkey invades northern Syria, while 70 die in a chemical attack, triggering a missile strike against Bashar al-Assad.
• The Trump administration reimposes sanctions against Iran.
• The first monkeys are cloned, and first genetically modified humans reported, in China.
• Jacob Zuma resigns as President of South Africa; Cyril Ramaphosa becomes President. Scott Morrison becomes Prime Minister of Australia.
• Four people are poisoned, one to death, in Salisbury and Amesbury, England in a suspected Russian assassination attempt. The British government responds by leading the international expulsion of 153 Russian diplomats.
• March for Our Lives occurs in 900 locations worldwide in response to the Parkland shooting.
• The northern white rhinoceros becomes functionally extinct.
• The university professor Giuseppe Conte becomes Prime Minister of Italy at the head of a populist coalition.
• Pakatan Harapan becomes the first opposition party to assume power in Malaysia since independence.
• The first summit between the USA and North Korea and the first ever crossing of the Korean Demilitarized Zone by a North Korean leader occur.
• Twenty-year Eritrean–Ethiopian border conflict formally ends.
• Yellow vests movement becomes France's largest sustained period of civil unrest since 1968.
• Sunda strait tsunami kills 426 and injures 14,000.
• 2018 Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami kills 4,340 and injures 10,700.
• Exiled Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi is assassinated inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, triggering a diplomatic crisis for Saudi Arabia.
• Kerch Strait incident triggers martial law in Ukraine.
• 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 Communist Party of China, the highest position without term limits.
• Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
• 2018 Armenian revolution happens in Armenia and improves country's democratic indexes. The revolution is known to be very peaceful due to its high civic sense.
• First post-ISIS election in Iraq.
• Twelve boys and their football coach are successfully rescued from the flooded Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Thailand.
• France wins the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.
• Leaders from more than 40 international organizations and dignitaries from nearly 200 countries attends the centennial of the ending of the First World War.
• Bill Cosby found guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman and is sentenced to three to ten years in prison.
• Deaths of Stephen Hawking, Stan Lee, Aretha Franklin, Burt Reynolds, Avicii, Kate Spade, Verne Troyer, Anthony Bourdain, Barbara Bush, John McCain, George H.W. Bush, XXXTentacion, Mac Miller, Penny Marshall, Stephen Hillenburg, Billy Graham, Mark Salling, Paul Allen, Philip Roth, Dolores O'Riordan, R. Lee Ermey, Margot Kidder, John Mahoney, Charlotte Rae, Charles Aznavour, Kofi Annan, Shoko Asahara, Rico J. Puno, Roilo Golez and Neil Simon.

  [2019]

• Jair Bolsonaro becomes President of Brazil.
• New Horizons takes the first close up image of a classical kuiper belt object.
• Chang'e 4 becomes the first object to land on the far side of the Moon.
• 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.
• 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.
• The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant loses the last of its territory.
• The EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market is passed over intense opposition.
• 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.
• The Event Horizon Telescope takes the first ever image of a black hole, at the core of galaxy Messier 87.
• Volodymyr Zelensky becomes President of Ukraine.
• Victor Vescovo breaks the human depth record, reaching 10,928 m in the Challenger Deep.
• Akihito abdicates as Emperor of Japan; Naruhito becomes Emperor.
• 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.
• Kyriakos Mitsotakis becomes Prime Minister of Greece.
• Boris Johnson becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and attempts a prorogation of Parliament that is ultimately declared unlawful.
• Protests begin in Hong Kong over an extradition bill.
• India revokes the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.
• Barisha raid ends in the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
• Protests erupt in India over the passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act.
• Wildfires spike in Brazil, while Australia endures the most widespread brush fires in its history.
• A major fire engulfs Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, resulting in the roof and main spire collapsing.
• Establishment of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
• A series of suicide bombings occurred in Sulu.
• Fossil fragments found in the Callao Cave in the Philippines reveal the existence of the Homo luzonensis species of humans.
• The 2019–2020 dengue fever epidemic begins in Southeast Asia.
• The U.S. Justice Department charges Chinese tech firm Huawei with multiple counts of fraud.
• WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange is arrested in London.
• Isabelle Holdaway is the first patient to receive a genetically modified phage therapy to treat a drug-resistant infection.
• More than 50 prisoners are killed in a series of riots in Amazonas, Brazil.
• A trilateral gathering was held at the Panmunjom Truce Village between South Korean President Moon Jae-in, North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un and United States President Donald Trump.
• Ursula von der Leyen becomes President of the European Commission.
• Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán found guilty of drug trafficking, money laundering and murder and is sentenced to 30 years in prison.
• Japan and South Korea trade dispute.
• Iranian woman Sahar Khodayari dies after sets 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.
• NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch conducts the first all-female spacewalk outside of the ISS.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is indicted on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
• Sanna Marin becomes Prime Minister of Finland.
• Pope Francis abolishes pontifical secrecy in sex abuse cases.
• Greta Thunberg delivers "How dare you" speech at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit.
• The President of the United States, Donald Trump, is impeached by the House of Representatives but acquitted by the Senate.
• 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic begins in Wuhan, China.
• Deaths of Jacques Chirac, Robert Mugabe, Mohamed Morsi, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Yasuhiro Nakasone, Beji Caid Essebsi, Luke Perry, Doris Day, Karl Lagerfeld, Cameron Boyce, Tim Conway, Gloria Vanderbilt, Toni Morrison, Valerie Harper, Peggy Lipton, Carol Channing, Diahann Carroll, Peter Fonda, John Singleton, Caroll Spinney, Danny Aiello, Peter Mayhew, Elijah Cummings, Ric Ocasek, Cokie Roberts, Albert Finney, Peter Tork, Henry Sy, Eddie Garcia, Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Gina Lopez, John Gokongwei, Goo Hara, Etika, Nipsey Hussle and Juice Wrld.

  [2020s]