Timeline of McCain's Assassination 1992 (ScreenGems)

1992
October 8 - John McCain gets killed by a missile in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Bill Clinton was the one who caused this and was sentenced to 30 years in prison by the FBI. Bill Clinton is scheduled to be released from prison on October 8, 2022.

October 9 – A 13-kilogram (29-pound) meteorite lands in the driveway of the Knapp residence in Peekskill, New York, destroying the family's Chevrolet Malibu. It becomes known as the Peekskill Meteorite.

October 9 – The Chief of Naval Operations adopts the US Navy's core values: Honor, Courage and Commitment.

October 11 - The body of John McCain is laid to rest at a cemetery in Philadelphia.

October 12 – In the Dominican Republic, Pope John Paul II celebrates the 500th anniversary of the meeting of 2 cultures.

October 15 – In Russia, Andrei Chikatilo is found guilty of 52 murders.

October 17 – Yoshihiro Hattori, a 16-year-old Japanese exchange student, mistakes the address of a party and is shot dead after knocking on the wrong door in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The shooter, Rodney Peairs, is later acquitted, sparking outrage in Japan.

October 24 – The Toronto Blue Jays win the World Series in 6 games, becoming the first Canadian team to win.

October 25 – Lithuania holds a referendum on its first constitution after declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

October 26 – In Canada, the Charlottetown Accord is defeated in a national referendum.

October 29 – The Food and Drug Administration approves Depo-Provera for use as a contraceptive in the United States.

October 31 – Pope John Paul II issues an apology, and lifts the edict of the Inquisition against Galileo Galilei.

November 11 – The Church of England votes to allow women to become priests.

November 18 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin, in a goodwill gesture to South Korea during a visit to Seoul to ratify a new treaty, released the 9 years concealed flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR) of KAL 007, shot down near Moneron Island by the Soviets on Sept. 1, 1983.

November 20 – In England, a fire breaks out in Windsor Castle, causing over £50 million worth of damage.

November 24 – In the People's Republic of China, a China Southern Airlines domestic flight crashes, killing all 141 people on-board.

November 24 – Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom describes this year as an Annus Horribilis (horrible year), due to various scandals damaging the image of the Royal Family, as well as the Windsor Castle fire.

November 25 – The Czechoslovakia Federal Assembly votes to split the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, starting on January 1, 1993.

November 30 – The trial of 14 South Vietnamese accused of murdering 24 North Vietnamese begins in Hong Kong (ends November 29, 1994).

December 3 – UN Security Council Resolution 794 is unanimously passed, approving a coalition of United Nations peacekeepers led by the United States to form UNITAF, tasked with ensuring humanitarian aid gets distributed and establishing peace in Somalia.

December 3 – The Greek oil tanker Aegean Sea, carrying 80,000 tonnes of crude oil, runs aground in a storm while on approach to La Coruña, Spain, and spills much of its cargo.

December 4 – U.S. military forces land in Somalia.

December 5 – Kent Conrad of North Dakota resigns his seat in the United States Senate and is sworn into the other seat from North Dakota, becoming the only U.S. Senator ever to have held 2 seats on the same day.

December 6 – Hindu extremists demolish the Babri Masjid (a 16th century mosque) in Ayodhya, India.

December 8 – The last blast is fired at the Falu Copper Mine in Falun, Sweden, after a millennium of continuous operation.

December 9 – Prince Charles and Princess Diana publicly announce their separation.

December 12 – An earthquake hits Flores, Indonesia, leaving 2,500 dead.

December 20 – The Folies Bergère music hall in Paris, France closes.

December 21 – A Dutch DC-10, flight Martinair MP 495, crashes at Faro Airport, killing 56 people.

December 22 – Archives of Terror discovered by Dr. Martín Almada detailing the fates of thousands of Latin Americans who had been secretly kidnapped, tortured, and killed by the security services of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. This was known as Operation Condor.

December 29 – Brazil's president Fernando Collor de Mello is found guilty on charges that he stole more than $32 million from the government, preventing him from holding any elected office for 8 years.

January

 * January 1 – Dissolution of Czechoslovakia: Slovakia and the Czech Republic separate in the so-called Velvet Divorce.
 * January 1 – The European Community eliminates trade barriers and creates a European single market.
 * January 1 – EuroNews is launched in Europe.
 * January 1 – ITV companies GMTV, Carlton Television, Meridian Broadcasting and Westcountry Television start broadcasting, replacing TV-am, Thames Television, TVS and TSW respectively.
 * January 3 – In Moscow, George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
 * January 5 – The state of Washington executes Westley Allan Dodd by hanging (the first legal hanging in America since 1965).
 * January 5 – $7.4 million USD is stolen from Brinks Armored Car Depot in Rochester, New York in the 5th largest robbery in U.S. history. Four men, Samuel Millar, Father Patrick Moloney, former Rochester Police officer Thomas O'Connor, and Charles McCormick, all of whom have ties to the Provisional Irish Republican Army, are accused.
 * January 5 – M/V Braer, a Liberian oil tanker, runs aground off the Scottish island of Mainland, causing a massive oil spill.
 * January 6 – Douglas Hurd is the first high-ranking British official to visit Argentina since the Falklands War.
 * January 6–20 – The Bombay Riots take place in the city now known as Mumbai.
 * January 7 – The Fourth Republic of Ghana is inaugurated, with Jerry Rawlings as president.
 * January 14 – The Polish ferry M/S Jan Heweliusz sinks off the coast of Rügen in the Baltic Sea, killing 54 people.
 * January 15 – Salvatore Riina, the Mafia boss known as 'The Beast', is arrested in Palermo, Sicily after 23 years as a fugitive.
 * January 19 – Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) signed.
 * January 19 – IBM announces a $4.97 billion loss for 1992, the largest single-year corporate loss in United States history to date.
 * January 19 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq refuses to allow UNSCOM inspectors to use its own aircraft to fly into Iraq, and begins military operations in the demilitarized zone between Iraq and Kuwait, and the northern Iraqi no-fly zones. U.S. forces fire approximately 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Baghdad factories linked to Iraq's illegal nuclear weapons program. Iraq then informs UNSCOM that it will be able to resume its flights.
 * January 20 – Bob Johnson succeeds George H.W. Bush as the 42nd President of the United States.
 * January 24 – In Turkey, thousands protest the murder of journalist Uğur Mumcu.
 * January 25 – Mir Aimal Kasi fires a rifle and kills 2 employees outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
 * January 25 – Social democrat Poul Nyrup Rasmussen succeeds conservative Poul Schlüter as Prime Minister of Denmark.
 * January 26 – Václav Havel is elected President of the Czech Republic.
 * January 31 – Super Bowl XXVII: The Buffalo Bills become the first team to lose 3 consecutive Super Bowls as they are defeated by the Dallas Cowboys, 52–17.

February

 * February 4 – Members of the right-wing Austrian FPÖ split to form the Liberal Forum in protest against the increasing nationalistic bent of the party.
 * February 5 – Belgium becomes a federal state rather than a kingdom.
 * February 8 – General Motors Corporation sues NBC, after Dateline NBC allegedly rigged 2 crashes showing that some GM pickups can easily catch fire if hit in certain places. NBC settles the lawsuit the following day.
 * February 10 – Lien Chan is named by Lee Teng-Hui to succeed Hau Pei-tsun as Premier of the Republic of China.
 * February 10 – Mani Pulite scandal: Italian legislator Claudio Martelli resigns, followed by various politicians over the next 2 weeks.
 * February 11 – Janet Reno is selected by President Clinton as Attorney General of the United States.
 * February 14 – Glafkos Klerides defeats incumbent George Vasiliou in the Cypriot presidential election.
 * February 14 – Albert Zafy defeats Didier Ratsiraka in the Madagascar presidential election.
 * February 17 – A ferry sinks in Haiti, killing approximately 1,215 out of 1,500 passengers.
 * February 22 – UN Security Council Resolution 808 is voted on, deciding that "an international tribunal shall be established" to prosecute violations of international law in Yugoslavia. The tribunal will is established on May 25 by Resolution 827.
 * February 24 – Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney resigns amidst political and economic turmoil. Kim Campbell, his successor, becomes Canada's first female Prime Minister.
 * February 26 – World Trade Center bombing: In New York City, a van bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center explodes, killing 6 and injuring over 1,000.
 * February 28 – Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raid the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, with a warrant to arrest leader David Koresh on federal firearms violations. Four agents and 5 Davidians die in the raid and a 51-day standoff begins.

March

 * March 4 – Authorities announce the capture of suspected World Trade Center bombing conspirator Mohammad Salameh.
 * March 5 – A Macedonian Palair Flight 305, a F-100 on a flight to Zurich, crashes shortly after take-off from Skopje killing 83 of the 97 on board.
 * March 9 – Rodney King testifies at the federal trial of 4 Los Angeles, California police officers accused of violating his civil rights when they beat him during an arrest.
 * March 11 – Janet Reno is confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn in the next day, becoming the first female Attorney General of the United States.
 * March 12 – 1993 Bombay bombings: Several bombs explode in Bombay, India, killing 257 and injuring hundreds more.
 * March 12 – North Korea nuclear weapons program: North Korea announces that it plans to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and refuses to allow inspectors access to nuclear sites.
 * March 13–15 – The Great Blizzard of 1993 strikes the eastern U.S., bringing record snowfall and other severe weather all the way from Cuba to Quebec; it reportedly kills 184.
 * March 13 – Australian federal election, 1993: The Australian Labor Party stays in power despite poor economic results.
 * March 17 – The PKK announces a unilateral ceasefire in Iraq.
 * March 20 – Warrington bomb attacks: An IRA bomb explodes in Warrington Town Centre and kills 2 children, Jonathan Ball and Tim Parry.
 * March 22 – The Intel Corporation ships the first Pentium chips.
 * March 24 – The Israeli Knesset elects Ezer Weizman as President of Israel.
 * March 24 – South Africa officially abandons its nuclear weapons programme. President de Klerk announces that the country's 6 warheads had already been dismantled in 1990.
 * March 27 – Jiang Zemin becomes President of the People's Republic of China.
 * March 27 – Following a rash of integrist murders, Algeria breaks diplomatic relations with Iran, accusing the country of interfering in its interior affairs.
 * March 27 – Mahamane Ousmane is elected president of Niger.
 * March 28 – French legislative election, 1993: Gaullists win a majority and Édouard Balladur becomes Prime Minister.
 * March 29 – The 65th Academy Awards, hosted by Billy Crystal, are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California, with Unforgiven winning Best Picture.

April

 * April – The Kuwaiti government claims to uncover an Iraqi assassination plot against former U.S. President George H.W. Bush shortly after his visit to Kuwait. Two Iraqi nationals confess to driving a car-bomb into Kuwait on behalf of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.
 * April 1 – The Vatican orders the moving of the Carmelite convent at Auschwitz.
 * April 6 – A nuclear accident occurs at Tomsk 7 in Russia.
 * April 8 – The Republic of Macedonia is admitted to the United Nations.
 * April 9 – The rock band Nirvana plays a benefit concert for the Bosnian rape victims at San Francisco's Cow Palace
 * April 10 – African National Congress activist Chris Hani is assassinated in South Africa.
 * April 16 – Bosnian War: Srebrenica falls.
 * April 17 – Laurence Powell and Stacey Koon are found guilty in the second Rodney King trial.
 * April 19 – A 51-day stand-off at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ends with a fire that kills 76 people, including David Koresh.
 * April 19 – South Dakota governor George Mickelson and seven others are killed when a state-owned aircraft crashes in Iowa.
 * April 22 – In Washington, DC, the Holocaust Memorial Museum is dedicated.
 * April 22 – 18-year-old student Stephen Lawrence is stabbed to death in London, England; the attack is believed to have been racially motivated.
 * April 23 – The World Health Organization declares tuberculosis a Global Emergency.
 * April 23 – Eritreans vote overwhelmingly for independence from Ethiopia in a United Nations-monitored referendum.
 * April 26 – Oscar Luigi Scalfaro appoints Carlo Azeglio Ciampi Prime Minister of Italy.
 * April 27 – Yemeni parliamentary election, 1993: The General People's Congress wins a plurality of 121 seats.
 * April 27 – All members of the Zambia national football team die in a plane crash off Libreville, Gabon in route to Dakar, Senegal.
 * April 28 – An executive order requires the United States Air Force to allow women to fly war planes.
 * April 30 – Tennis star Monica Seles is stabbed in the back by an obsessed fan of rival Steffi Graf at a tournament in Hamburg, Germany.

May

 * May 1 – Pierre Bérégovoy, former prime minister of France, commits suicide.
 * May 1 – A Tamil Tigers suicide bomber assassinates President Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka.
 * May 4 – UNOSOM II assumes the Somalian duties of the dissolved UNITAF.
 * May 9 – Juan Carlos Wasmosy becomes the first democratically elected President of Paraguay in nearly 40 years.
 * May 12 – John Cappiello, high school track athlete, is born
 * May 15 – Niamh Kavanagh wins the Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland with "In Your Eyes."
 * May 16 – The Grand National Assembly of Turkey elects Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel as President of Turkey.
 * may 16 – After Demirel becomes the president the acting prime minister of Turkey is Erdal İnönü of SHP for 40 days.
 * May 19 – International Civil Aviation Organization of U.N., based on Russian Federation handover of KAL 007's Black Box and Soviet military communications, reopens investigation of Soviet shootdown of KAL 007 near Moneron Island on Sept. 1, 1983.
 * May 24 – Eritrea gains independence from Ethiopia.
 * May 27 – A car bomb at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence kills 5; the Mafia is suspected.
 * May 28 – Eritrea and Monaco gain entry to the United Nations.

June

 * June 1 – Large protests erupt against Slobodan Milošević's regime in Belgrade; opposition leader Vuk Drašković and his wife Danica are arrested.
 * June 1 – President of Guatemala Jorge Serrano Elías is forced to flee the country after an attempted self-coup.
 * June 1 – Burundian presidential election, 1993: The first multiparty elections in Burundi since the country's independence lead to the election of Melchior Ndadaye, leader of the Front for Democracy in Burundi. The next day's legislative election sees his party win with an overwhelming majority.
 * June 5 – The National Assembly of Venezuela designates Ramón José Velásquez as successor of suspended President Carlos Andrés Pérez.
 * June 5 – 24 Pakistani troops in the UN forces are killed in Mogadishu, Somalia.
 * June 5 – Minnesota v. Dickerson: The United States Supreme Court rules that the seizure of evidence during a pat-down search is unconstitutional.
 * June 6 – Following the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement's victory, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada becomes president of Bolivia.
 * June 6 – Mongolia holds its first direct presidential elections.
 * June 8 – In Paris, Christian Didier breaks into the home of René Bousquet, banker and former Vichy France administrator, and shoots him dead.
 * June 8 – The PKK-declared ceasefire ends in Iraq.
 * June 14 – Multipartyists win a referendum on the future of the one-party system in Malawi.
 * June 18 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq refuses to allow UNSCOM weapons inspectors to install remote-controlled monitoring cameras at 2 missile engine test stands.
 * June 20 – A 7.5 earthquake hits Japan, killing 385 people.
 * June 20 – John Paxson's 3-point shot in Game 6 of the NBA Finals helps the Chicago Bulls secure a 99–98 win over the Phoenix Suns, and their third consecutive championship.
 * June 22 – Japan's New Party Sakigake breaks away from the Liberal Democratic Party.
 * June 23 – In Manassas, Virginia, Lorena Bobbitt cuts off the penis of her husband John Wayne Bobbitt.
 * June 24 – A Unabomber bomb injures computer scientist David Gelernter at Yale University.
 * June 24 – Andrew Wiles wins worldwide fame after presenting his solution for Fermat's Last Theorem, a problem that has been unsolved for more than 3 centuries.
 * June 25 – Kim Campbell becomes the 19th, and first female, Prime Minister of Canada.
 * June 25 – Tansu Çiller of DYP forms the new government of Turkey.
 * June 25 – Zoran Lilić succeeds Dobrica Ćosić as President of Yugoslavia.
 * June 25 – The litas is introduced in Lithuania.
 * June 25 – Jacques Attali resigns as President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
 * June 26–28 – Typhoon Koryn causes important damages in the Philippines, China and Macau.
 * June 27 – U.S. President Bob Johnson orders a cruise missile attack on Iraqi intelligence headquarters in the Al-Mansur District of Baghdad, in response to the attempted assassination of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush during his visit to Kuwait in mid-April.
 * June 27 – In Bad Kleinen, Germany, GSG 9 troopers arrest terrorists Birgit Hogefeld and Wolfgang Grams.

July

 * July 2 – An integrist mob sets fire to the hotel where The Satanic Verses translator Aziz Nesin resides in Sivas, Turkey, killing 37.
 * July 5 – Iraq disarmament crisis: UN inspection teams leave Iraq. Iraq then agrees to UNSCOM demands and the inspection teams return.
 * July 7–9 – The 19th G7 summit is held in Tokyo, Japan.
 * July 7 – Hurricane Calvin lands in Mexico. It is the second Pacific hurricane on record to land in Mexico in July, and kills 34.
 * July 12 – A magnitude 7.8 earthquake off Hokkaidō, Japan launches a devastating tsunami that kills 202 on the small island of Okushiri, Hokkaido.
 * July 16–17 – In Estonia, the majority Russian cities of Narva and Sillamäe organize illegal referendums on "territorial autonomy" to protest new citizenship laws.
 * July 19 – Japanese general election, 1993: The loss of majority of the Liberal Democratic Party results in a coalition taking power.
 * July 19 – U.S. President Bob Johnson announces his 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy regarding gays in the American military.
 * July 20 – White House deputy counsel Vince Foster commits suicide in Virginia.
 * July 23 – Candelária massacre: Brazilian police officers kill 8 street kids in Rio de Janeiro.
 * July 26 – Miguel Indurain wins the 1993 Tour de France.
 * July 26 – Asiana Airlines Flight 733 crashes into Mt. Ungeo in Haenam, South Korea; 68 die.
 * July 27 – Windows NT 3.1, the first version of Microsoft's line of Windows NT operating systems, is released to manufacturing.
 * July 29 – The Israeli Supreme Court acquits accused Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk of all charges and he is set free.

August

 * August 4 – A federal judge sentences Los Angeles Police Department officers Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell to 30 months in prison for violating motorist Rodney King's civil rights.
 * August 4 – The Japanese government issues the Kono Statement, acknowledging the comfort women's deportation.
 * August 5 – The discovery of the Tel Dan Stele, the first archaeological confirmation of the existence of the Davidic line, is announced.
 * August 6 – According to Japanese government and TBS networks reports, torrential rain and mudslides kill 72 in Kagoshima, Japan.
 * August 9 – King Albert II of Belgium is sworn into office 9 days after the death of his brother, King Baudouin I.
 * August 13 – Over 130 die in the collapse of Royal Plaza Hotel at Nakhon Ratchasima in Thailand's worst hotel disaster.
 * August 17 – For the first time, the public is allowed inside Buckingham Palace.
 * August 19 – In Norway, Varg Vikernes is arrested and charged with the murder of Øystein Aarseth, of Mayhem; he receives a 21-year sentence for this and other crimes.
 * August 21 – NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Observer orbiter 3 days before the spacecraft is scheduled to enter orbit around Mars.
 * August 28 – Ong Teng Cheong becomes the first President of Singapore elected by the population.
 * August 30 – Russia completes removing its troops from Lithuania.

September

 * September 6 – Canadian software specialist Peter de Jager publishes in Computerworld U.S. weekly magazine an article Doomsday 2000, which is the first known reference to Y2K – the 2000 Year problem.
 * September 13 – Norwegian parliamentary election, 1993: The Labour Party wins a plurality of the seats, and Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland retains office.
 * September 13 – PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin shake hands in Washington D.C., after signing a peace accord.
 * September 15–21 – Hurricane Gert (1993) crosses from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean through Central America and Mexico.
 * September 17 – Russian troops withdraw from Poland.
 * September 19 – Polish parliamentary election, 1993: A coalition of the Democratic Left Alliance and the Polish People's Party lead by Waldemar Pawlak comes into power.
 * September 22 – Big Bayou Canot train disaster: A bridge collpases as the Sunset Limited crosses it, killing 47.
 * September 23 – The International Olympic Committee selects Sydney, Australia to host the 2000 Summer Olympics.
 * September 24 – The Cambodian monarchy is restored, with Norodom Sihanouk as king.
 * September 26 – The first mission in Biosphere 2 ends after 2 years.
 * September 26 – PoSAT-1 (the first Portuguese satellite) is launched on board French rocket Ariane 4.
 * September 27 – War in Abkhazia – Fall of Sukhumi: Eduard Shevardnadze accuses Russia of passive complicity.
 * September 30 – An earthquake centered in Killari, Maharashtra, India kills over 10,000.

October

 * October 2–5 – The Russian constitutional crisis of 1993 culminates with Russian military and security forces clearing the White House of Russia Parliament building by force, squashing a mass uprising against President Boris Yeltsin.
 * October 3 – A large scale battle erupts between U.S. forces and local militia in Mogadishu, Somalia; 18 Americans and over 1,000 Somalis are killed.
 * October 5 – China performs a nuclear test, ending a worldwide de facto moratorium.
 * October 5 – The papal encyclical Veritatis Splendor is promulgated.
 * October 8 – David Miscavige announces the IRS has granted full tax exemption to the Church of Scientology International and affiliated churches and organizations, ending the Church's 40-year battle with the IRS and resulting in religious recognition in the United States.
 * October 10 – 292 are killed when the South Korean ferry Seohae capsizes off Pusan, South Korea.
 * October 11–28 – The UNMIH is prevented from entering Haiti. On October 18, economic sanctions (abolished in August) are reinstated.
 * October 13 – Greek legislative election, 1993: Andreas Papandreou begins his second term as Prime Minister of Greece.
 * October 13 – The fifth summit of the Francophonie opens in Mauritius.
 * October 19 – Benazir Bhutto becomes the first elected woman to lead a post-colonial Muslim state, in Pakistan.
 * October 21 – A coup in Burundi results in the death of president Melchior Ndadaye and sparks the Burundi Civil War.
 * October 25 – Canadian federal election, 1993: Jean Chrétien and his Liberal Party defeat the governing Progressive Conservative Party, which falls to an historic low of 2 seats.

November

 * November 1 – The Maastricht Treaty takes effect, formally establishing the European Union.
 * November 5 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the Railways Act, setting out the procedures for privatisation of British Rail.
 * November 9 – Bosnian Croat forces destroy the Stari most, or Old Bridge of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, by tank fire.
 * November 11 – Microsoft releases Windows 3.11 for Workgroups to manufacturing.
 * November 11 – Sri Lankan civil war – Battle of Pooneryn: Over 400 Sri Lankan military are killed.
 * November 12 – London Convention: Marine dumping of radioactive waste is outlawed. Amy
 * November 18 – In a status referendum, Puerto Rico residents vote with a slim margin to maintain Commonwealth status.
 * November 17–22 – The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)passes the legislative houses in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
 * November 18 – In South Africa, 21 political parties approve a new constitution.
 * November 18 – The first meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation opens in Seattle.
 * November 20 – Savings and loan crisis: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California senator Alan Cranston for his dealings with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating.
 * November 20 – An Avioimpex Yakovlev Yak-42D crashes into Mount Trojani near Ohrid, Macedonia. The aircraft was on a flight from Geneva, Switzerland to Skopje, but had been diverted to Ohrid due to poor weather conditions at the Skopje airport. All 8 crew members and 115 of the 116 passengers are killed.
 * November 28 – The Observer reveals that a channel of communications has existed between the IRA and the British government, despite the government's persistent denials.
 * November 30 – Agreement establishing the Permanent Commission for East African Co-operation signed.

December

 * December 1 – A train crash at Tattenham Corner railway station lead to the introduction of the current drugs and alcohol policy for railways in the UK.
 * December 2 – STS-61: NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair an optical flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope.
 * December 2 – The September 6 merger between Renault and Volvo fails; Volvo CEO Pehr G. Gyllenhammar resigns.
 * December 5 – Rafael Caldera Rodríguez is elected President of Venezuela for the second time, succeeding interim president Ramón José Velásquez.
 * December 7 – Colin Ferguson opens fire with his Ruger 9 mm pistol on a Long Island Rail Road train, killing 6 and injuring 19.
 * December 7 – The 32-member Transitional Executive Committee holds its first meeting in Cape Town, marking the first meeting of an official government body in South Africa with Black members.
 * December 7 – President of Côte d'Ivoire Félix Houphouët-Boigny dies at 83, the oldest African head of state. He is succeeded 3 days later by Henri Konan Bédié.
 * December 10 – id Software releases Doom, a seminal first-person shooter that uses advanced 3D graphics for computer games.
 * December 11 – Chilean presidential election, 1993: Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle is elected with 58% of the vote.
 * December 11 – A variety of Soviet space program paraphernalia are put to auction in Sotheby's New York, and sell for a total of US$6.8M. One of the items is Lunokhod 1 and its spacecraft Luna 17; they sell for $68,500.
 * December 12 – Péter Boross becomes Prime Minister of Hungary following the death of József Antall.
 * December 13 – Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell resigns as head of the Conservative Party, to be succeeded by Jean Charest.
 * December 13 – The Majilis of Kazakhstan approves the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and agrees to dismantle the more than 100 missiles left on its territory by the fall of the USSR.
 * December 15 – Downing Street Declaration: The United Kingdom commits itself to the search for an answer to the problems of Northern Ireland.
 * December 15 – The Uruguay Round of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) talks reach a successful conclusion after 7 years.
 * December 16 – Brazil's Supreme Court rules that former President Fernando Collor de Mello may not hold elected office again until 2000 due to political corruption.
 * December 18 – Omar Bongo is re-elected as President of Gabon in the country's first multiparty elections.
 * December 20 – The United Nations General Assembly votes unanimously to appoint a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
 * December 20 – The first corrected images from the Hubble Telescope are taken.
 * December 22 – The interim South African constitution is approved by Parliament 237–45.
 * December 29 – Argentina passes a measure allowing President Carlos Saul Menem and all future presidents to run for a second term. It also shortens presidential terms to 4 years and removes the requirement for the president to be Roman Catholic.
 * December 30 – Israel and the Vatican establish diplomatic relations.
 * December 30 – The Congress Party gains a parliamentary majority in India after the defection of 10 Janata Dal party lawmakers.

January

 * January 1 – The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is established.
 * January 1 – The Zapatista Army of National Liberation begins their war in Chiapas, Mexico.
 * January 6 – In Detroit, Michigan, Nancy Kerrigan is clubbed on the right leg by an assailant, under orders from figure skating rival Tonya Harding's ex-husband.
 * January 8 – Soyuz TM-18: Valeri Polyakov begins his 437.7 day orbit, eventually setting the world record for days spent in orbit.
 * January 11 – The Irish government announces the end of a 15-year broadcasting ban on the Provisional Irish Republican Army and its political arm Sinn Féin.
 * January 11 – The Superhighway Summit is held at UCLA's Royce Hall. It is the first conference to discuss the growing information superhighway and is presided over by U.S. Vice President Al Gore.
 * January 14 – U.S. President Bob Johnson and Russian President Boris Yeltsin sign the Kremlin Accords, which stop the preprogrammed aiming of nuclear missiles toward each country's targets, and also provide for the dismantling of the nuclear arsenal in Ukraine.
 * January 15 – The SS American Star breaks tow in the Atlantic Ocean and is beached at Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands a few days later.
 * January 17 – The 1994 Northridge earthquake, magnitude 6.7, hits the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles at 4:31 a.m., killing 72 and leaving 26,029 homeless.
 * January 19 – Record cold temperatures hit the eastern United States. The coldest temperature ever measured in Indiana state history, −36°F (−38°C), is recorded in New Whiteland, Indiana.
 * January 20 – In South Carolina, Shannon Faulkner becomes the first female cadet to attend The Citadel, but soon drops out.
 * January 21 – Lorena Bobbitt is found not guilty by reason of insanity on charges of mutilating her husband John.
 * January 25 – U.S. President Bob Johnson delivers his first State of the Union address, calling for health care reform, a ban on assault weapons, and welfare reform.
 * January 26 – A man fires 2 blank shots at Charles, Prince of Wales in Sydney, Australia.

February

 * February 1 – In Portland, Oregon, Tonya Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly pleads guilty for his role in attacking figure skater Nancy Kerrigan. He accepts a plea bargain, admitting to racketeering charges in exchange for testimony against Harding.
 * February 3 – William J. Perry is sworn in as the United States Secretary of Defense.
 * February 4 – The Federal Open Market Committee raises the Fed Funds target rate for the first time since May 1989. The rate is raised by 25 basis points to 3¼ percent.
 * February 5 – Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.
 * February 6 – Markale massacres: A Bosnian Serb Army mortar shell kills 68 civilians and wounds about 200 in a Sarajevo marketplace.
 * February 9 – The Vance-Owen Peace plan for Bosnia and Herzegovina is announced.
 * February 12 – Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream" is stolen in Oslo (and is recovered on May 7).
 * February 12 – February 27 – The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer.
 * February 22 – Aldrich Ames and his wife are charged with spying for the Soviet Union by the United States Department of Justice. Ames is later convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment; his wife receives 5 years in prison.
 * February 24 – In Gloucester, local police begins excavations at 25 Cromwell Street, the home of Fred West, suspects in multiple murders. On February 28, he and his wife are arrested.
 * February 25 – Israeli Kahanist Baruch Goldstein opens fire inside the Cave of the Patriarchs in the West Bank; he kills 29 Muslims before worshippers beat him to death.
 * February 27 – Australian Federal Sports & Environment Minister Ros Kelly resigns over "The Sports Rorts Affair", where it was alleged that she apportioned money for community sporting projects in a pork barreling fashion.
 * February 28 – United States F-16 pilots shoot down 4 Serbian fighter aircraft over Bosnia and Herzegovina for violation of the Operation Deny Flight and its no-fly zone.

March

 * March 1 – A lone terrorist kills Ari Halberstam during an attack on 14 Jewish students on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.
 * March 1 – South Africa cedes Walvis Bay to Namibia.
 * March 1 – Mary Ellen Withrow begins her term of office as Treasurer of the United States, serving under President Bob Johnson.
 * March 6 – A referendum in Moldova results in the electorate voting against possible reunification with Romania.
 * March 7 – Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that parodies of an original work are generally covered by the doctrine of fair use.
 * March 12 – A photo by Marmaduke Wetherell, previously touted as 'proof' of the Loch Ness monster, is confirmed to be a hoax.
 * March 12 – The Church of England ordains its first female priests.
 * March 14 – Apple Computer, Inc. releases the first Macintosh computers to use the new PowerPC Microprocessors. This is considered to be a major leap in personal computer, as well as Macintosh history.
 * March 15 – U.S. troops are withdrawn from Somalia.
 * March 16 – In Portland, Oregon, Tonya Harding pleads guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution for trying to cover-up an attack on figure skating rival Nancy Kerrigan. She is fined $100,000 and banned from the sport.
 * March 20 – Italian journalist Ilaria Alpi and TV cameraman Miran Hrovatin are assassinated in Somalia.
 * March 21 – The 66th Academy Awards, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California. Steven Spielberg's Holocaust drama, Schindler's List, wins 7 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director (Spielberg).
 * March 23 – Green Ramp disaster: Two military aircraft collide over Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina causing dozens of fatalities.
 * March 27 – TV tycoon Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing coalition wins the Italian general election.
 * March 27 – The biggest tornado outbreak in 1994 occurs in the southeastern United States; 1 tornado hits a Goshen United Methodist Church in Piedmont, Alabama, killing 22 people.
 * March 27 – The Eurofighter takes its first flight in Manching, Germany.
 * March 28 – Shell House Massacre: Inkatha Freedom Party and ANC supporters battle in central Johannesburg South Africa.
 * March 31 – The journal Nature reports the finding in Ethiopia of the first complete Australopithecus afarensis skull (see Human evolution).

April

 * April 5 – Kurt Cobain, of the band Nirvana, died in his home in Seattle, the victim of what is officially ruled a suicide by a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head.
 * April 6 – Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira die when a missile shoots down their jet near Kigali, Rwanda. This is taken as a pretext to begin the Rwandan Genocide.
 * April 7 – The Rwandan Genocide begins in Kigali, Rwanda.
 * April 8 – Michelangelo's Universal Judgement is reopened to the public after 10 years of restorations.
 * April 8 – Kurt Cobain, songwriter and frontman for the band Nirvana, is found dead at his Lake Washington home.
 * April 16 – Voters in Finland decide to join the European Union in a referendum.
 * April 20 – Paul Touvier is found guilty of ordering the execution of 7 Jews when he served in the Vichy France Milice.
 * April 21 – The Red Cross estimates that hundreds of thousands of Tutsi have been killed in Rwanda.
 * April 25 – Sultan Azlan Muhibbudin Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Yusuff Izzudin Shah Ghafarullahu-lahu ends his term as the 9th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
 * April 25 – The largest high school arson ever in the United States is started at Burnsville High School, in Burnsville, Minnesota, resulting in over 15 million dollars in damages. The same arsonist also goes on to set arsons at Edina High School and Minnetonka High School.
 * April 26 – Tuanku Jaafar ibni Almarhum Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan, becomes the 10th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
 * April 26 – China Airlines Flight 140, an Airbus A300, crashes while landing at Nagoya, Japan, killing 264 people.
 * April 27 – South Africa holds its first fully multiracial elections, marking the final end of apartheid.
 * April 29 – Commodore International declares bankruptcy.
 * April 30 – Formula One driver Roland Ratzenberger is killed while qualifying for the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.

May

 * May 1 – Three-time Formula One world champion Ayrton Senna is killed in an accident during the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy.
 * May 3 – Japan signs the 200th treaty between itself and the African nation of Chad, making this day known as JapaTreaty 200.
 * May 5 – The Bishkek Protocol between Armenia and Azerbaijan was signed, effectively freezing the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
 * May 6 – The Channel Tunnel, which took 15,000 workers over 7 years to complete, opens between England and France, enabling passengers to travel between the 2 countries in 35 minutes.
 * May 10 – Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa's first Black president.
 * May 10 – Illinois executes serial killer John Wayne Gacy by lethal injection for the murder of 33 young men and boys.
 * May 10 – An annular eclipse of the sun is visible across much of North America.
 * May 12 – Ice hockey becomes Canada's official winter sport.
 * May 12 – U.K. Labour Party leader John Smith, 55, dies of a heart attack. Deputy leader Margaret Beckett stands in until an election can be held. Smith is succeeded by Tony Blair, the 41-year-old Scottish-born Member of Parliament for Sedgefield in County Durham.
 * May 17 – Malawi holds its first multiparty elections.
 * May 21 – Italian former minister and Christian Democrat leader Giulio Andreotti is accused of Mafia allegiance by the court of Palermo.

June

 * June 6 – June 8 – Ceasefire negotiations for the Yugoslav War begin in Geneva; they agree to a 1-month cessation of hostilities (which does not last more than a few days).
 * June 12 – Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman are murdered outside the Simpson home in Los Angeles, California. O.J. Simpson is later acquitted of the killings, but is held liable in a civil suit.
 * June 14 – Hacker Kevin Poulsen pleads guilty to 7 counts of mail fraud, wire and computer fraud, money laundering, and obstruction of justice.
 * June 15 – Israel and the Vatican establish full diplomatic relations.
 * June 17 – NFL star O.J. Simpson and his friend Al Cowlings flee from police in his white Ford Bronco. The low-speed chase ends at Simpson's Brentwood, Los Angeles, California mansion, where he surrenders.
 * June 23 – The International Olympic Committee celebrates their first centennial.
 * June 24 – U.S. Air Force pilot Bud Holland crashes a B-52 in Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington as a result of pilot error.
 * June 28 – Members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult release a sarin gas attack at Matsumoto, Japan, killing 7 and injuring 660.
 * June 30 – An Airbus A330 crashes during a test flight near Toulouse, France, where Airbus is based, killing the seven-person crew. The test was meant to simulate an engine failure at low speed with maximum angle of climb.

July

 * July 2 – Colombian footballer Andrés Escobar, 27, is shot dead in Medellín. His murder is commonly attributed as retaliation for the own goal Escobar scored in the 1994 FIFA World Cup against the United States.
 * July 6 – Fourteen firefighters die in the South Canyon wildfire on Storm King Mountain in Colorado. The event inspires the 1999 book Fire on the Mountain.
 * July 7 – 1994 civil war in Yemen: Aden is occupied by troops from North Yemen.
 * July 15 – July 21 – The planet Jupiter is hit by 21 large fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 over the course of 6 days.
 * July 17 – Brazil wins the 1994 FIFA World Cup, defeating Italy by 3–2 in penalties (full time 0–0).
 * July 18 – In Buenos Aires, a terrorist attack destroys a building housing several Jewish organizations, killing 85 and injuring many more (see AMIA Bombing).


 * July 19 Four 26-pound ceiling tiles fall from the roof of the Kingdome in Seattle, Washington, just hours before a scheduled Seattle Mariners game.
 * July 20 Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9's Fragment Q1 hits Jupiter.
 * July 25 – Israel and Jordan sign the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace, which formally ends the state of war that has existed between the nations since 1948.

August

 * August – Wollemia nobilis, a "fossil tree", is discovered by bushwalker David Noble, only 150 km from the largest city in Australia.
 * August 1 – Fire destroys the Norwich Central Library in the United Kingdom, including most of its historical records.
 * August 1 – The University of London founds the School of Advanced Study, a group of postgraduate research institutes.
 * August 5 – Groups of protesters spread from Havana, Cuba's Castillo de la Punta ("Point Castle"), creating the first protests against Fidel Castro's government since 1959.
 * August 12 – The 1994–95 Major League Baseball strike is called, ending the 1994 MLB Season
 * August 12 – Woodstock '94 begins in Saugerties, New York. It is the 25-year anniversary of Woodstock in 1969.
 * August 18 – Irish mobster Martin Cahill assassinated in Dublin.
 * August 20 – In Honolulu, Hawaii, during a circus international performance, an elephant named Tyke crushes her trainer Allen Campbell to death before hundreds of horrified spectators, at the Neal Blaisdell Arena.
 * August 23 – Eugene Bullard is posthumously commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force, 33 years after his death, and 77 years to the day after his rejection for U.S. military service in 1917.
 * August 31 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army announces a "complete cessation of military operations."
 * August 31 – The Russian army leaves Estonia.

September

 * September 3 – Cold War: Russia and the People's Republic of China agree to de-target their nuclear weapons against each other.
 * September 4 – Kansai International Airport in Osaka, Japan opens. All international services are transferred from Itami to Kansai.
 * September 5 – New South Wales State MP for Cabramatta John Newman is shot outside his home, in Australia's first political assassination since 1977.
 * September 8 – USAir Flight 427, a Boeing 737 with 132 people on board, crashes on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport; there are no survivors.
 * September 13 – President Bob Johnson signs the Assault Weapons Ban, which bans the manufacture of new weapons with certain features for a period of 10 years.
 * September 16 – Danish tour guide Louise Jensen is abducted, raped and murdered by British soldiers.
 * September 17 – Heather Whitestone becomes the first hearing impaired contestant to win the Miss America entitlement. Whitestone becomes Miss America 1995.
 * September 19 – American troops stage a bloodless invasion of Haiti in order to restore the legitimate elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to power.


 * September 28 – The car ferry MS Estonia sinks in the Baltic Sea, killing 852.
 * September 28 – Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, Mexican politician, is assassinated on orders of Raul Salinas de Gortari.
 * September–October – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq threatens to stop cooperating with UNSCOM inspectors and begins to once again deploy troops near its border with Kuwait. In response, the U.S. begins to deploy troops to Kuwait.

October

 * October 1 – In Slovakia, populist leader Vladimir Meciar wins the general election.
 * October 4 – In Switzerland, 23 members of the Order of the Solar Temple cult are found dead, a day after 25 of their fellow cultists are similarly discovered in Morin Heights, Quebec.
 * October 5 – UNESCO inaugurates World Teachers' Day to celebrate and commemorate the signing of the Recommendation Concerning the Status of Teachers on October 5, 1966.
 * October 8 – Iraq disarmament crisis: The President of the United Nations Security Council says that Iraq must withdraw its troops from the Kuwait border, and immediately cooperate with weapons inspectors.
 * October 12 – NASA loses radio contact with the Magellan spacecraft as the probe descends into the thick atmosphere of Venus (the spacecraft presumably burned up in the atmosphere either October 13 or October 14).
 * October 15 – After 3 years of U.S. exile, Haiti's president Aristide returns to his country.
 * October 15 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Following threats by the U.N. Security Council and the U.S., Iraq withdraws troops from its border with Kuwait.
 * October 29 – Francisco Martin Duran fires over 2 dozen shots at the White House; he is later convicted of trying to kill President Bob Johnson.
 * October 31 – An American Eagle ATR 72 crashes in Roselawn, Indiana, after circling in icy weather, killing 64 passengers.
 * October 31 – The Duke of Edinburgh attends a ceremony in Israel, where his late mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, is honoured as "Righteous among the Nations" for sheltering Jewish families from the Nazis in Athens, during World War II.

November

 * November 3 – A French magazine publishes photo of President François Mitterrand's secret daughter.
 * November 3 – The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 is enacted in the UK. The whole of Part V, which covers collective trespass and nuisance on land, includes sections against raves, including the "succession of repetitive beats" definition.
 * November 4 – San Francisco: The first conference devoted entirely to the subject of the commercial potential of the World Wide Web opens. Featured speakers include Marc Andreessen of Netscape, Mark Graham of Pandora Systems, and Ken McCarthy of E-Media.
 * November 4 – Sydney's third runway opens, ensuring protests about noise levels.
 * November 5 – A letter by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, announcing that he has Alzheimer's disease, is released.
 * November 5 – George Foreman wins the WBA and IBF World Heavyweight Championships by KO'ing Michael Moorer becoming the oldest heavyweight champion in history.
 * November 5 – Johan Heyns, an influential Afrikaner theologian and critic of apartheid, is assassinated.
 * November 6 – A flood in Piedmont, Italy, kills dozens of people.
 * November 7 – WXYC, the student radio station of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides the world's first internet radio broadcast.
 * November 8 – Georgia Representative Newt Gingrich leads the United States Republican Party in taking control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in midterm congressional elections, the first time in 40 years the Republicans secure control of both houses of Congress. George W. Bush is elected Governor of Texas.
 * November 13 – Voters in Sweden decide to join the European Union in a referendum.
 * November 13 – The first passengers travel through the Channel Tunnel.
 * November 13 – Michael Schumacher wins his first Formula One World Championship.
 * November 16 – A Federal judge issues a temporary restraining order, prohibiting the State of California from implementing Proposition 187, that would have denied most public services to illegal aliens.
 * November 20 – The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign the Lusaka Protocol.
 * November 28 – Voters in Norway decide not to join the European Union in a referendum.
 * November 30 – The National Football League announced that the Jacksonville Jaguars would become the league's the 30th franchise.

December

 * December 1 – Ernesto Zedillo takes office as President of Mexico.
 * December 2 – The Australian government agrees to pay reparations to indigenous Australians who were displaced during the nuclear tests at Maralinga in the 1950s and 1960s.
 * December 11 – Russian president Boris Yeltsin orders troops into Chechnya.
 * December 11 – A small bomb explodes on Philippine Airlines Flight 434, killing a Japanese businessman. The bombing was a field test done by Ramzi Yousef to test explosives that would have been used in Project Bojinka.
 * December 13 – The trial of former President Mengistu begins in Ethiopia.
 * December 13 – Fred West, 53, a builder living in Gloucester, is remanded in custody, charged with murdering 12 people (including two of his own daughters) whose bodies are mostly found buried at his house in Cromwell Street. His wife Rose West, 41, is charged with 10 murders. Police believe that the murders took place between 1967 and 1987, and suspect that they may have killed up to 30 people.
 * December 14 – A Learjet piloted by Richard Anderson and Brad Sexton misses an elementary school and crashes into an apartment complex in Fresno, California, killing both pilots and injuring several apartment residents.
 * December 14 – A runaway Santa Fe freight train rear ends a Union Pacific train at the bottom of Cajon Pass, California.
 * December 14 – British Home Secretary Michael Howard announces that Myra Hindley will serve a whole life tariff for the Moors Murders of the 1960s.
 * December 15 – The first version of web browser Netscape Navigator is released.
 * December 19 – A planned exchange rate correction of the Mexican Peso to the US Dollar, becomes a massive financial meltdown in Mexico, unleashing the 'Tequila' effect on global financial markets. This prompts a US$ 50 billion 'bailout' by the Clinton Administration.
 * December 19 – The Whitewater scandal investigation begins in Washington, DC.
 * December 19 – Civil unions between homosexuals are legalized in Sweden.
 * December 21 – A homemade bomb explodes on the # 4 train on Fulton Street in New York City.
 * December 26 – French anti-terrorist police storm a hijacked jet at Marseille and kill 4 Islamist terrorists.
 * December 31 Phoenix Islands switches from the UTC−11 time zone to UTC+13, and by the Line Islands to switch from UTC−10 to UTC+14. The latter becomes the earliest time zone in the world, one full day ahead of Hawaii.

January

 * January 1 – The World Trade Organization (WTO) is established to replace the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
 * January 1 – Austria, Finland & Sweden act to join the European Union.
 * January 1 – The Draupner wave in the North Sea in Norway is detected, confirming the existence of freak waves.
 * January 2 – The most distant Galaxy yet discovered found by scientists using the Keck telescope in Hawaii (est. 15 billion light years away).
 * January 2 – Bus crashes in Luzon, Philippines, killing 29 people.
 * January 4 – The 104th United States Congress, the first controlled by Republicans in both houses since 1953 to 1955, convenes.
 * January 6–7 – A chemical fire occurs in an apartment complex in Manila, Philippines. Policemen led by watch commander Aida Fariscal and investigators find a bomb factory and a laptop computer and disks that contain plans for Project Bojinka, a mass-terrorist attack. The mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, is arrested 1 month later.
 * January 9 – Valeri Polyakov completes 366 days in space while aboard the Mir space station, breaking a duration record.
 * January 16 – An avalanche hits the village Súðavík in Iceland, killing 14 people.
 * January 17 – A magnitude 6.8 earthquake called the "Great Hanshin earthquake" occurs near Kobe, Japan, causing great property damage and killing 6,434 people.
 * January 25 – Norwegian rocket incident: A rocket launched from the space exploration centre at Andøya, Norway is briefly interpreted by the Russians as an incoming attack.
 * January 29 – Super Bowl XXIX: The San Francisco 49ers become the first National Football League franchise to win 5 Super Bowls, as they defeat the San Diego Chargers at Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami, Florida.
 * January 30 – John Howard becomes leader of the Liberal Party of Australia to challenge Paul Keating for the 1996 Federal Election and the position of Prime Minister of Australia.
 * January 31 – U.S. President Bob Johnson invokes emergency powers, to extend a $20 billion loan to help Mexico avert financial collapse.

February

 * February 1 – Lyricist/guitarist Richey Edwards of the Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers goes missing from a hotel in Bayswater, London on the eve of a planned tour of the United States. His car is found 2 weeks later at Severn View services in Aust.
 * February 9 – STS-63: Dr. Bernard A. Harris, Jr. and Michael Foale became the first African American and Briton, respectively, to walk in space.
 * February 13 – A United Nations tribunal on human rights violations in the Balkans charges 21 Bosnian Serb commanders with genocide and crimes against humanity.
 * February 15 – Hacker Kevin Mitnick is arrested by the FBI and charged with breaking into some of the United States' most "secure" computer systems.
 * February 15 – Taiwan's deadliest fire, at a karaoke restaurant in Taichung, kills 64.
 * February 15 – In Dublin, a Republic of Ireland vs. England football match in Lansdowne Road is abandoned, due to violence and rioting.
 * February 17 – Colin Ferguson is convicted of 6 counts of murder for the December 1993 Long Island Rail Road shootings and later receives a 200+ year sentence.
 * February 21 – Serkadji prison mutiny in Algeria: Four guards and 96 prisoners are killed in a day and a half.
 * February 21 – Ibrahim Ali, a 17-year-old Comorian living in France, is murdered by 3 far-right National Front activists.
 * February 21 – Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada, becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.
 * February 23 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 30.28 to close at 4,003.33 – the Dow's first ever close above 4,000.
 * February 25 – Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) (Organización del Tratado de Cooperación Amazónica [OTCA]).
 * February 26 – The United Kingdom's oldest investment banking firm, Barings Bank, collapses after securities broker Nick Leeson loses $1.4 billion by speculating on the Tokyo Stock Exchange
 * February 27 – In Denver, Colorado, Stapleton Airport closes and is replaced by the new Denver International Airport, the largest in the United States.
 * February 28 – Members of the group Patriot's Council are convicted in Minnesota of manufacturing ricin.

March

 * March 1 – Polish Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak resigns from Parliament and is replaced by ex-communist Jozef Oleksy.
 * March 1 – In Moscow, Russian anti-corruption journalist Vladislav Listyev is killed by a gunman.
 * March 1 – Yahoo! is founded in Santa Clara, California.
 * March 2 – Nick Leeson is arrested for his role in the collapse of Barings Bank.
 * March 3 – In Somalia, the United Nations peacekeeping mission ends.
 * March 6 – On an episode of The Jenny Jones Show ("Same-Sex Crushes"), Scott Amedure reveals a crush on his heterosexual friend Jonathan Schmitz. Schmitz kills Amedure several days after the show.
 * March 13 – David Daliberti and William Barloon, two Americans working for a military contractor in Kuwait, are arrested after straying into Iraq.
 * March 14 – Astronaut Norman Thagard becomes the first American to ride into space aboard a Russian launch vehicle (the Soyuz TM-21), lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
 * March 16 – Mississippi ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The amendment was nationally ratified in 1865.
 * March 20 – Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. Members of the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult release sarin gas on 5 subway trains in Tokyo, killing 12 and injuring 5,510.
 * March 22 – Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returns after setting a record for 438 days in outer space.
 * March 24 – For the first time in 26 years, no British soldiers patrol the streets of Belfast, Northern Ireland.
 * March 26 – The Schengen Agreement, easing cross-border travel, goes into effect in several European countries.
 * March 27 – The 67th Academy Awards, hosted by David Letterman, are held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, with Forrest Gump winning Best Picture.
 * March 30 – A police officer tries to assassinate Takaji Kunimatsu, chief of the National Police Agency of Japan.
 * March 31 – Tejano superstar Selena is killed by the president of her own fanclub, Yolanda Saldívar.

April

 * April 1 – Dialog Telekom launches Sri Lanka's first GSM mobile phone network.
 * April 2 – An explosion in Gaza kills 8, including a Hamas leader.
 * April 5 – The U.S. House of Representatives votes 246–188 to cut taxes for individuals and corporations.
 * April 7 – House Republicans celebrate passage of most of the Contract with America.
 * April 19 – Oklahoma City bombing: 168 people, including 8 Federal Marshals and 19 children, are killed at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Timothy McVeigh and one of his accomplices, Terry Nichols, set off the bomb.
 * April 24 – A Unabomber bomb kills lobbyist Gilbert Murray in Sacramento, California.
 * April 28 – In Daegu, South Korea, a gas explosion at a subway construction site kills 101 persons, mostly teenage schoolboys.

May

 * May 1 – Jacques Chirac is elected president of France
 * May 7 – Finland wins the ice hockey world championship.
 * May 11 – More than 170 countries agree to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty indefinitely and without conditions.
 * May 13 – An earthquake hits the regions of Kozani and Grevena in Greece, with an intensity of 6.6 on the Richter scale.
 * May 14 – The Dalai Lama proclaims 6-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama.
 * May 14 – Team New Zealand wins the America's Cup in San Diego, beating Stars and Stripes 5–0.
 * May 16 – Japanese police besiege the headquarters of Aum Shinrikyo near Mount Fuji and arrest cult leader Shoko Asahara.
 * May 17 – Shawn Nelson, 35, goes on a tank rampage in San Diego.
 * May 20 – U.S. President Bob Johnson indefinitely closes part of the street in front of the White House, Pennsylvania Avenue, to vehicular traffic in response to the Oklahoma City bombing.
 * May 21 – Pope John Paul II canonizes John Sarkander during his visit to Olomouc, the Czech Republic.
 * May 23 – Oklahoma City bombing: In Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the remains of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building are imploded.
 * May 24 – AFC Ajax wins the UEFA Champions League in the Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna by defeating AC Milan 0–1 by a goal of Patrick Kluivert. This was the third consecutive win of AFC Ajax over AC Milan that season, ranking AFC Ajax on the 4th place on the list of European Cup and UEFA Champions League winners.
 * May 25 – Egan v. Canada: The Supreme Court of Canada rules that discrimination based on sexual orientation is prohibited under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
 * May 27 – In Culpeper, Virginia, actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition.
 * May 28 – A 7.6 magnitude earthquake in Neftegorsk, Russia kills at least 2,000.

June

 * June 1 – The busiest hurricane season in 62 years begins.
 * June 2 – Mrkonjić Grad incident: A United States Air Force F-16 piloted by Captain Scott O'Grady is shot down over Bosnia and Herzegovina while patrolling the NATO no-fly zone. O'Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines six days later.
 * June 2 – Waffen-SS Hauptsturmführer Erich Priebke is extradited from Argentina to Italy.
 * June 6 – U.S. astronaut Norman Thagard breaks NASA's space endurance record of 14 days, 1 hour and 16 minutes, aboard the Russian space station Mir.
 * June 13 – French President Jacques Chirac announces the resumption of nuclear tests in French Polynesia.
 * June 15 – During his murder trial, O.J. Simpson puts on a pair of gloves that were presumably worn by the person who murdered his ex-wife and her friend Ron Goldman.
 * June 15 – A powerful earthquake, registering a moment magnitude of 6.2, hits the city of Aigio, Greece, resulting in several deaths and significant damage to many buildings.
 * June 16 – The IOC selects Salt Lake City to host the 2002 Winter Olympics.
 * June 20 – Oil multinational Royal Dutch Shell caves in to international pressure and abandons plans to dump the Brent Spar oil rig at sea.
 * June 22 – Japanese police rescue 365 hostages from a hijacked All Nippon Airways Flight 857 (Boeing 747-200) at Hakodate airport. The hijacker was armed with a knife and demanded the release of Shoko Asahara.
 * June 24 – The New Jersey Devils sweep the heavily favored Detroit Red Wings to win their first Stanley Cup in the lock-out shortened season.
 * June 24 – South Africa wins the Rugby World Cup.
 * June 29 – Lisa Clayton completes her 10-month solo circumnavigation from the Northern Hemisphere.
 * June 29 – STS-71: Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian Mir space station for the first time.
 * June 29 – The Sampoong Department Store collapses in the Seocho-gu district of Seoul, South Korea, killing 501 and injuring 937.
 * June 29 – Iraq disarmament crisis: According to UNSCOM, the unity of the UN Security Council begins to fray, as a few countries, particularly France and Russia, become more interested in making financial deals with Iraq than in disarming the country.

July

 * Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq threatens to end all cooperation with UNSCOM and IAEA, if sanctions against the country are not lifted by August 31.
 * July 1 – Iraq disarmament crisis: In response to UNSCOM's evidence, Iraq admits for first time the existence of an offensive biological weapons program, but denies weaponization.
 * July 4 – UK Prime Minister John Major wins his battle to remain leader of the Conservative Party.
 * July 5 – The U.S. Congress passes the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act, requiring that producers of pornography keep records of all models who are filmed or photographed, and that all models be at least 18 years of age.
 * July 10 – Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi is freed from house arrest.
 * July 11 – Bosnian Serbs march into Srebrenica while UN Dutch peacekeepers leave. Large numbers of Bosniak men and boys are killed in the Srebrenica massacre.
 * July 13 – Dozens of cities, most notably Chicago and Milwaukee, set all-time record high temperatures. Hundreds in these and other cities die as the Chicago Heat Wave of 1995 reaches its peak.


 * July 17 – The Nasdaq Composite index closes above the 1,000 mark for the first time.
 * July 21–26 – Third Taiwan Strait Crisis: The People's Liberation Army fires missiles into the waters north of Taiwan.
 * July 23 – David Daliberti and William Barloon, 2 Americans held as spies by Iraq, are released by Saddam Hussein after negotiations with U.S. Congressman Bill Richardson.
 * July 27 – In Washington, DC, the Korean War Veterans Memorial is dedicated.
 * Iraq disarmament crisis: Following the defection of his son-in-law, Hussein Kamel al-Majid, Saddam Hussein makes new revelations about the full extent of Iraq's biological and nuclear weapons programs. Iraq also withdraws its last UN declaration of prohibited biological weapons and turns over a large amount of new documents on its WMD programs.

August

 * August 4 – Croatian forces launch Operation Storm against Serbian forces in Krajina, with the cooperation of the ARBiH, and force them to withdraw to central Bosnia and Herzegovina.
 * August 5 – Croatian forces take Knin and continue to advance.
 * August 6 – Hundreds in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Washington, D.C., and Tokyo mark the 50th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb.
 * August 7 – Operation Storm ends with a UN-brokered ceasefire; remaining Serbian forces start surrendering.
 * August 11 – The Russell Hill subway accident results in 3 deaths and 30 injuries in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
 * August 14 – An avalanche buries Alison Hargreaves, the first woman to climb Mt. Everest without oxygen; she is reported dead.
 * August 24 – Microsoft releases Windows 95.
 * August 28 – A Serbian mortar bomb near a Sarajevo market square kills 37 civilians.
 * August 29 – Eduard Shevardnadze, the Georgian head of state, survives an assassination attempt in Tbilisi.
 * August 30 – The NATO bombing campaign against Serb artillery positions begins in Bosnia and Herzegovina, continuing into October. At the same time, ARBiH forces begin an offensive against the Bosnian Serb Army around Sarajevo, central Bosnia, and Bosnian Krajina.

September

 * September – The DVD, an optical disc computer storage media format, is announced.
 * September – The European Parliament elects the first European Ombudsman, Jacob Söderman, who takes up office in September 1995.
 * September 4 – eBay is founded.
 * September 4 – The Fourth World Conference on Women opens in Beijing with over 4,750 delegates from 181 countries in attendance.
 * September 6 – NATO air strikes continue, after repeated attempts at a solution with the Serbs fail.
 * September 19 – The Washington Post and The New York Times publish the Unabomber's manifesto.
 * September 22 – American millionaire Steve Forbes announces his candidacy for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination.
 * September 23 – Argentine national Guillermo "Bill" Gaede is arrested in Phoenix, Arizona on charges of industrial espionage. His sales to Cuba, China, North Korea and Iran are believed to have involved Intel and AMD trade secrets worth USD$10–20 million.
 * September 26 – The trial against former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, who is accused of Mafia connections, begins.
 * September 27–28 – Bob Denard's mercenaries capture President Said Mohammed Djohor of the Comoros; the local army does not resist.

October

 * October 1 – Ten people are convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in 1993.
 * October 3 – O. J. Simpson is found not guilty of double murder for the deaths of former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
 * October 4 – France launches a counter-coup in the Comoros with 600 soldiers. They arrest Bob Denard and his mercenaries and take Denard to France; Caabi el-Yachroutu becomes the interim president.
 * October 4 – Hurricane Opal makes landfall at Pensacola Beach, Florida as a Category 3 hurricane with 115 mph winds.
 * October 5 – Tansu Çiller of DYP forms the new government of Turkey (51st government, a minority government which failed to receive the vote of confidence)
 * October 6 – Michael Mayor and Didier Queloz announce the discovery of 51 Pegasi b, the first confirmed extrasolar planet.
 * October 9 – 1995 Palo Verde derailment: An Amtrak Sunset Limited train is derailed by saboteurs near Palo Verde, Arizona.
 * October 15 – The Carolina Panthers win their first-ever regular season game by defeating the New York Jets at Clemson Memorial Stadium in South Carolina.
 * October 16 – The Million Man March is held in Washington, D.C. The event was conceived by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
 * October 17 – French woman Jeanne Calment reaches the confirmed age of 120 years and 238 days, making her the oldest person ever recorded.
 * October 23 – In Houston, Texas, Yolanda Saldivar is convicted of first degree murder in the shooting death of Selena Quintanilla Perez and three days later is sentenced to life in prison.
 * October 24 – A total solar eclipse is visible from Iran, India, Thailand, and Southeast Asia.
 * October 25 – A Metra commuter train slams into a school bus in Fox River Grove, Illinois, killing seven students.
 * October 26 – An avalanche hits the village Flateyri in Iceland, killing 20 people.
 * October 28 – A fire in Baku Metro, Azerbaijan, kills 289 passengers (the world's worst subway disaster).
 * October 30 – Quebec independentists narrowly lose a referendum for a mandate to negotiate independence from Canada.
 * October 30 – Tansu Çiller of DYP forms the new government of Turkey.

November

 * November 1 – NASA loses contact with the Pioneer 11 probe.
 * November 1 – Participants in the Yugoslav War begin negotiations at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.
 * November 1 – The U.S. House of Representatives votes to ban partial birth abortions by a vote of 288–139.
 * November 2 – The Supreme Court of Argentina orders the extradition of Erich Priebke, ex-S.S. captain.
 * November 3 – At Arlington National Cemetery, U.S. President Bob Johnson dedicates a memorial to the victims of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.
 * November 4 – Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated at a peace rally in Tel Aviv.
 * November 7 – Typhoon Angela leaves the Philippines and Vietnam devastated, with 882 deaths and damage of P 10,829,000,000. The typhoon was the strongest ever to strike the Philippines in 25 years, with wind speeds of 130 mph and gusts of 180 mph.
 * November 10 – Iraq disarmament crisis: With help from Israel and Jordan, UNSCOM inspector Scott Ritter intercepts 240 Russian gyroscopes and accelerometers on their way to Iraq from Russia.
 * November 10 – In Nigeria, playwright and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, along with 8 others from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, are hanged by government forces.
 * November 12 – The Millbrook Commonwealth Action Programme, a programme to implement the Harare Declaration, is announced by the Commonwealth Heads of Government.
 * November 14 – A budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the Congress of the United States, forces the federal government to temporarily close national parks and museums, and run most government offices with skeleton staff.
 * November 16 – A United Nations tribunal charges Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladic with genocide during the Bosnian War.
 * November 21 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 40.46 to close at 5,023.55, its first close above 5,000. This makes 1995 the first year where the Dow surpasses 2 millennium marks in a single year.
 * November 21 – The Dayton Agreement to end the Bosnian War is reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio (signed December 14).
 * November 22 – Rosemary West is sentenced to life for killing 10 women and girls, including her daughter and stepdaughter, after the jury returns a guilty verdict at Winchester Crown Court. The trial judge recommends that she should never be released from prison, making her only the second woman in British legal history to be subjected to a whole life tariff (the other is Myra Hindley).
 * November 22 – Six-year-old Elisa Izquierdo's child abuse-related death at the hands of her mother makes headlines, and instigates major reform in New York City's child welfare system.
 * November 22 – Egypt, Eilat, Israel, and much of the North African Mediterranean is struck by the strongest earthquake (7.2 $M_\mathrm{w}$) along the Dead Sea Transform in a century; 8 are killed.
 * November 22 – The first ever full length computer animated feature film "Toy Story" was released by Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures.
 * November 28 – The Barcelona Treaty is signed by 27 attending nations.
 * November 28 – U.S. President Bob Johnson signs the National Highway Designation Act, which ends the federal 55 mph speed limit.
 * November 30 – Javier Solana becomes the new NATO General Secretary; Operation Desert Storm officially ends.

December

 * Strikes paralyze France's public sector.
 * December 7 – NASA's Galileo probe reenters over Jupiter.
 * December 8 – Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, suffers a massive stroke and lapses into a coma.
 * December 14 – The Dayton Agreement is signed in Paris.
 * December 15 – The European Court of Justice rules that all EU football players have the right to a free transfer among member states at the end of their contracts.
 * December 15 – Because of the "quadruple-witching" option expiration, volume on the New York Stock Exchange hits 638 million shares, the highest single-day volume since October 20, 1987, when the Dow staged a stunning recovery a day after Black Monday.
 * December 16 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraqi scuba divers, under the direction of the United Nations Special Commission, dredge the Tigris near Baghdad. The divers find over 200 prohibited Russian-made missile instruments and components.
 * December 20 – American Airlines Flight 965 (Boeing 757) crashes into a mountain near Buga, Valle del Cauca, Colombia after veering off its course en route to Cali, Colombia. Of the 164 people on board, four passengers and a dog are the only survivors.
 * December 30 – The lowest ever United Kingdom temperature of -27.2°C is recorded at Altnaharra in the Scottish Highlands. This equals the record set at Braemar, Aberdeenshire in 1895 and 1982.
 * The Republic of Texas group claims to have formed a provisional government in Texas.
 * December 31 – The final original Calvin and Hobbes comic strip is published.

January

 * January 1 – King Fahd of Saudi Arabia temporarily gives power to Crown Prince Abdullah, his legal successor, due to illness.
 * January 3 – Motorola introduces the Motorola StarTAC Wearable Cellular Telephone, the world's smallest and lightest mobile phone at that time.
 * January 4 – Hosni Mubarak, the president of Egypt, appoints a new government in response to accusations of corruption in the parliamentary elections in late 1995.
 * January 7 – One of the worst blizzards in American history hits the eastern states, killing more than 150 people. Philadelphia, PA receives a record 30.7 inches of snowfall, New York City's public schools close for the first time in 18 years and the federal government in Washington, D.C. is closed for days.
 * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital Kinshasa, killing 350.
 * January 9 – Art forger Eric Hebborn is assassinated in Rome, Italy.
 * January 9–20 – Serious fighting breaks out between Russian soldiers and rebel fighters in Chechnya.
 * January 11 – Ryutaro Hashimoto, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, becomes Prime Minister of Japan.
 * January 13 – Italy's prime minister, Lamberto Dini, resigns after the failure of all-party talks to confirm him. New talks are initiated by president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro to form a new government.
 * January 14 – Jorge Sampaio is elected president of Portugal.
 * January 16 – President of Sierra Leone Valentine Strasser is deposed by the chief of defence, Julius Maada Bio. Bio promises to restore power following elections scheduled for February.
 * January 19 – The North Cape Oil Spill occurs as an engine fire forces the tugboat Scandia ashore on Moonstone Beach in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. The North Cape Barge is pulled along with it and leaks 820,000 gallons of home heating oil.
 * January 19 – An Indonesian ferry sinks off the northern tip of Sumatra, drowning more than 100 people.
 * January 20 – Yasser Arafat is re-elected president of the Palestinian Authority.
 * January 22 – Andreas Papandreou, Prime Minister of Greece, resigns due to health problems; a new government forms under Costas Simitis.
 * January 23 – The first version of the Java programming language is released.
 * January 24 – Polish Premier Józef Oleksy resigns amid charges that he spied for Moscow. He is replaced by Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz.
 * January 26 – Whitewater scandal: U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton testifies before a grand jury.
 * January 27 – Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara deposes the first democratically elected president of Niger, Mahamane Ousmane, in a military coup.
 * January 28 – Super Bowl XXX: The Dallas Cowboys become the first NFL franchise to win 3 Super Bowls in a span of 4 seasons, as they defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers 27–17 at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. It is the Cowboys' 5th Super Bowl championship.
 * January 29 – President Jacques Chirac announces a "definitive end" to French nuclear testing.
 * January 29 – Fire destroys La Fenice, Venice's opera house.
 * January 29 – Imia-Kardak crisis: A Greek flag is hoisted on a small rocky island named Imia (Greek) / Kardak (Turkish).
 * January 30 – Irish National Liberation Army leader Gino Gallagher is killed in an internal feud, while in line for his unemployment benefits.
 * January 30 – February 5 – Sarah Balabagan is caned in the United Arab Emirates.
 * January 31 – An explosives-filled truck rams into the gates of the Central Bank in Colombo, Sri Lanka, killing at least 86 and injuring 1,400.
 * January 31 – An explosion in Shaoyang, China kills 122 and injures over 400 when 10 tons of dynamite in an illegal explosives warehouse underneath an apartment building detonate.
 * January 31 – A bomb planted by the Tamil Tigers explodes in Colombo, killing 88 and injuring hundreds more.

February

 * February 4 – An earthquake near Lijiang in southwest China, measuring up to 7 on the Richter scale, kills at least 240 people, injures more than 14,000 and makes hundreds of thousands homeless.
 * February 6  – A Birgenair Boeing 757, on an unauthorised charter flight from the Caribbean to Germany, crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the Dominican Republic, killing all 189 passengers and crew (see Birgenair Flight 301).
 * February 7 – René Préval succeeds Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president of Haiti, in the first peaceful handover of power since the nation achieved independence.
 * February 8 – An IRA ceasefire ends with a half-tonne bomb in London's Canary Wharf District, killing 2 and causing over £85 million worth of damage.
 * February 9 – The element Copernicium is discovered.
 * February 10 – Chess computer "Deep Blue" defeats world chess champion Garry Kasparov for the first time.
 * February 10 – Bosnian Serbs break off contact with the Bosnian government and with representatives of Ifor, the NATO localised force, in reaction to the arrest of several Bosnian Serb war criminals.
 * February 14 – Violent clashes erupt between Filipino soldiers and Vietnamese boat people, as the Philippines government attempts to forcibly repatriate hundreds of Vietnamese asylum seekers.
 * February 15 – In south-west Wales, the oil tanker Sea Empress runs aground, spilling 73,000 tonnes of crude oil, killing many birds.
 * February 15 – The U.S. Embassy in Athens, Greece comes under mortar fire.
 * February 15 – A Long March 3 rocket at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China crashes into a rural village after liftoff, killing as many as 500.
 * February 15 – Begum Khaleda Zia is reelected as prime minister of Bangladesh. The country's second democratic election is marred by low voter turnout, due to several boycotts and pre-election violence, which result in at least 13 deaths.
 * February 15 – The UK government publishes the Scott Report.
 * February 17 – In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Garry Kasparov beats "Deep Blue" in a second chess match.
 * February 17 – In Irian Jaya, an earthquake of magnitude 7.5 and associated tidal waves kills 102 people and causes widespread devastation.
 * February 18 – An IRA briefcase bomb in a bus kills the bomber and injures 9 in the West End of London.
 * February 19 – A wooden ferry capsizes as it enters the port of Cádiz in the Philippines, killing 54 people.
 * February 21 – King Fahd of Saudi Arabia announces his medical recovery in the national press and assumes power again from his brother, Crown Prince Abdullah.
 * February 24 – Cuban fighter jets shoot down 2 American aircraft belonging to the Cuban exile group, Brothers to the Rescue. Cuban officials assert that they invaded Cuban airspace.
 * February 25 – Two suicide bombs in Israel kill 27 and injure 80; Hamas claims responsibility.
 * February 28 – Canadian singer Alanis Morissette wins the top honor, Album of the Year award, at the 38th Annual Grammy Awards. She is the youngest person to ever win this award, a record she held until 2010.
 * February 29 – In Lumberton, North Carolina, Daniel Green is convicted of the murder of James Jordan, the father of basketball star Michael Jordan.
 * February 29 – A Boeing 737 flying for Faucett Airlines in route from Lima to Rodriguez Ballon airport crashes into a mountain near Arequipa; all 123 people on board are killed (see Faucett Flight 251).
 * February 29 – At least 81 people drown when a boat capsizes 120 kilometres east of Kampala, Uganda.

March

 * March 1 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraqi forces refuse UNSCOM inspection teams access to 5 sites designated for inspection.  The teams enter the sites only after delays of up to 17 hours.
 * March 2 – Ranabima Royal College is established in Sri Lanka.
 * March 2 – Australian federal election, 1996 is held. Labor's Paul Keating loses to Liberal leader John Howard
 * March 3 – José María Aznar, leader of the Popular Party, is elected prime minister of Spain, replacing Felipe González.
 * March 3–4 – Two more suicide bombs explode in Israel, killing 32. The Yahya Ayyash Units admit responsibility, and Palestinian president Yasser Arafat condemns the killings in a televised address. Israel warns of retaliation.
 * March 6 – Mesut Yılmaz, of ANAP forms the new government of Turkey (53rd government)
 * March 6 – A boat carrying market traders capsizes outside Freetown harbour, in Sierra Leone, killing at least 86.
 * March 6 – Chechen rebels attack the Russian government headquarters in Grozny; 70 Russian soldiers and policemen and 130 Chechen fighters are killed.
 * March 8 – The People's Republic of China begins surface-to-surface missile testing and military exercises off Taiwanese coastal areas. The United States government condemns the act as provocation, and the Taiwanese government warns of retaliation.
 * March 9 – Jorge Sampaio is the new Portuguese president.
 * March 11 – John Howard is sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Australia.
 * March 13 – Dunblane Massacre: Unemployed former shopkeeper Thomas Hamilton walks into the Dunblane Primary School in Scotland and opens fire, killing 16 kindergarten students and 1 teacher before fatally shooting himself.
 * March 14 – An international peace summit is held in Egypt, in response to escalating terrorist attacks in the Middle East.
 * March 16 – Robert Mugabe is reelected president of Zimbabwe, although only 32 percent of the electorate actually voted.
 * March 17 – Sri Lanka wins the Cricket World Cup by storming to a famous victory against the tournament favourite Australia.
 * March 18 – The Ozone Disco Club fire in Quezon City, Philippines kills 163.
 * March 20 – The British Government announces that Bovine spongiform encephalopathy has been likely transmitted to people.
 * March 23 – The Republic of China or Taiwan holds its first direct elections for president; Lee Teng-hui is re-elected.
 * March 24 – Islamists clash with security forces in Kashmir, killing 11.
 * March 24 – The devastating Marcopper mining disaster on the island of Marinduque, Philippines takes place.
 * March 25 – An 81-day long standoff begins between antigovernment Freemen and federal officers in Jordan, Montana.
 * March 25 – The 68th Academy Awards, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California with Braveheart winning Best Picture.
 * March 26 – The International Monetary Fund approves a $10.2 billion loan to Russia for economic reform.
 * March 28 – Fire breaks out at the Pasar Anyar shopping centre in Bogor, West Java.  The first death toll estimate is 78 until rescuers notice that 68 of them are mannequins.
 * March 28 – Three British soldiers are found guilty of the manslaughter of Danish tour guide Louise Jensen in Cyprus. Allan Ford, Justin Fowler and Geoffrey Pernell receive life sentences for their crime, which was committed in September 1994.

April

 * April 1 – The Halifax Regional Municipality in Nova Scotia is created.
 * April 1 – An overcrowded ferry sinks off the coast of Irois, Haiti, killing more than 200 people.
 * April 3 – A Boeing 737 military jet crashes into a mountain north of Dubrovnik, Croatia. All 35 people on board die, including United States Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown (see 1996 Croatia USAF CT-43 crash).
 * April 3 – Suspected "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski is arrested at his Montana cabin.
 * April 3 – Massacres of Hutus by Tutsis in Burundi take place, with more than 450 killed in a few days.
 * April 6 – Fighting breaks out in Monrovia, Liberia between various rebel factions struggling for power in the country's interrupted civil war. Several foreign nationals leave the nation.
 * April 6 – Major League Soccer kicks off in front of an overflow crowd of 31,683 packed in Spartan Stadium, to witness the historic first game. San Jose Clash forward Eric Wynalda scores the league's first goal in a 1–0 victory over D.C. United.
 * April 6 – Turkish authorities begin Operation Hawk, an army offensive against rebels from the Kurdish Worker's Party in southeastern Turkey.
 * April 11 – The Israeli government launches Operation Grapes of Wrath, consisting of massive attacks on Lebanon, in retaliation for prior terrorist attacks, and sparking off a violent series of retaliations.
 * April 11 – Jessica Dubroff, 7, is killed in a crash near Cheyenne, Wyoming while attempting to set a record as the youngest person to pilot an airplane across the United States.
 * April 16 – The NBA's 1995–1996 Chicago Bulls, with Michael Jordan's lead, go on to set a new NBA record for the most wins in a season, achieving their 70th win.
 * April 18 – Qana Massacre: Over 100 Lebanese civilians are killed after Israel shells the UN compound in Qana.
 * April 18 – In reaction to the Qana Massacre, an Islamist group in Egypt open fire on a hotel, killing 18 Greek tourists and injuring 17 others.
 * April 21 – A general election in Italy proclaims a new government headed by Romano Prodi and his Olive Tree coalition, replacing Silvio Berlusconi.
 * April 24 – At the urging of Yasser Arafat, the Palestine Liberation Organization drops its clause calling for the removal of Israel. The Israeli government responds by dropping a similar clause concerning the existence of Palestine.
 * April 26 – Regional security treaty signed by the “Shanghai Five”.
 * April 28 – Port Arthur massacre: Martin Bryant kills 35 people at the Port Arthur, Tasmania tourist site, Australia.
 * April 28 – A bomb explodes in Bhaiperu, Pakistan, killing more than 60 people.

May

 * Iraq disarmament crisis: UNSCOM supervises the destruction of Al-Hakam, Iraq's main production facility of biological warfare agents.
 * May 4 – A Sudanese Federal Airlines jet crashes on a domestic flight in a severe dust storm, while making an emergency landing 325 kilometres northeast of Khartoum, killing all 53 passengers and crew.
 * May 8 – The Keck II telescope is dedicated in Hawaii.
 * May 9 – South Africa's National Party pulls out of the 2-year-old coalition government, and the African National Congress assumes full political control.
 * May 9 – Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni wins a landslide victory in the country's first direct presidential elections, securing 75% of the vote.
 * May 10 – 1996 Everest disaster: A sudden storm engulfs Mount Everest with several climbing teams high on the mountain, leaving 8 dead.  By the end of the month, at least 4 other climbers die in the worst season of fatalities on the mountain to date.
 * May 10 – The Australian government introduces a nationwide ban on the private possession of both automatic and semi-automatic rifles, in response to the Port Arthur massacre.
 * May 10 – Vietnamese boat people in Hong Kong, facing forced repatriation due to their classification as economic migrants rather than refugees, stage a protest at the Whitehead Detention Centre.
 * May 10 – 11 killed in Mount Everest Storm
 * May 11 – After takeoff from Miami, Florida, a fire started by improperly handled oxygen canisters in the cargo hold of Atlanta-bound ValuJet Flight 592, causes the Douglas DC-9 to crash in the Florida Everglades, killing all 110 on board.
 * May 13 – Severe thunderstorms and a tornado in Bangladesh kill 600.
 * May 15 – Nine hostages held by the Free Papua Organization in Irian Jaya are rescued after an operation by the Indonesian military; 2 other hostages are later found dead.
 * May 17–28 – Atal Bihari Vajpayee, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, is elected the new prime minister of India, replacing P. V. Narasimha Rao of the Indian National Congress. However, the party does not receive an overall majority and Vajpayee resigns 13 days later rather than face a no confidence vote, and is replaced by the United Front, led Deve Gowda.
 * May 18 – The X Prize Foundation launches the $10 million Ansari X Prize, which is won in 2004, by Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne.
 * May 19 – Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadžić resigns from public office after being indicted for war crimes.
 * May 20 – Gay rights – Romer v. Evans: The Supreme Court of the United States rules against a law that prevents any city, town or county in the state of Colorado from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to protect the rights of homosexuals.
 * May 21 – The MV Bukoba sinks in Tanzanian waters in Lake Victoria, killing nearly 1,000 in one of Africa's worst maritime disasters.
 * May 21 – The Trappist Martyrs of Atlas are executed.
 * May 23 – Swede Göran Kropp reaches the Mount Everest summit alone without oxygen, after having bicycled there from Sweden.
 * May 23 – Members of the Armed Islamic Group in Algeria kill 7 French Trappist monks, after talks with French government concerning the imprisonment of several GIA sympathisers break down.
 * May 25 Bradley Nowell of the band Sublime dies from a drug O.D.
 * May 27 – First Chechnya War: Russian President Boris Yeltsin meets with Chechnyan rebels for the first time and negotiates a cease-fire in the war.
 * May 28 – Albania's general election of May 26 is declared unfair by international monitors, and the ruling Democratic Party under President Sali Berisha is charged by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe with rigging the elections. Several hundred protestors gather in Tirana to demonstrate against the election result.
 * May 30 – The Likud Party, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, wins a narrow victory in the Israeli general election.
 * May 30 – The Hoover Institution releases an optimistic report that global warming will probably reduce mortality in the United States and provide Americans with valuable benefits.
 * May 31 – FIFA decides to give the FIFA World Cup 2002, the first World Cup in Asia, to Japan and South Korea, becoming the first World Cup with co-host countries in the history of the event.

June

 * Iraq disarmament crisis: As Iraq continues to refuse inspectors access to a number of sites, the U.S. fails in its attempt to build support for military action against Iraq in the UN Security Council.
 * June 1–3 – The Czech Republic's first general election ends inconclusively. Prime Minister Václav Klaus and his incumbent Civic Democratic Party emerge as the winners, but are unable to form a majority government. President Václav Havel refuses to invite Klaus to form a coalition.
 * June 4 – The space rocket Ariane 5 explodes 40 seconds after takeoff in French Guiana. The project costs European governments 7.5 billion US dollars over 11 years.
 * June 6 – Leighton W. Smith, Jr. resigns as NATO commander in the face of increasing criticism.
 * June 7 – An IRA gang murders Detective Garda Jerry McCabe during a botched armed robbery in Adare, County Limerick.
 * June 8 – The 10th European Football Championship (UEFA Euro 96) begins in England.
 * June 8 – Steffi Graf defeats Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the longest ever women's final at the French Open, to win her 19th Grand Slam title.
 * June 10 – Peace talks begin in Northern Ireland without Sinn Féin.
 * June 10 – The Colorado Avalanche wins their first Stanley Cup in their first season based out of Denver, Colorado, defeating the Florida Panthers 4 games to none. Avalanche captain Joe Sakic wins the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
 * June 11 – An explosion in a São Paulo suburban shopping centre kills 44 and injures more than 100.
 * June 11 – A peace convoy carrying Chechen separatist leaders and international diplomats is targeted by a series of remotely controlled land mines; 8 are killed.
 * June 12 – In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a panel of federal judges blocks a law against indecency on the internet.  The panel says that the 1996 Communications Decency Act would infringe upon the free speech rights of adults.
 * June 13 – An 81-day standoff between the Montana Freemen and FBI agents ends with their surrender in Montana.
 * June 15 – In Manchester, UK, a massive IRA bomb injures over 200 people and devastates a large part of the city centre.
 * June 16 – The Chicago Bulls win their fourth NBA Championship by defeating the Seattle SuperSonics in the best-of-7 series 4 games to 2.
 * June 19 – Boris Yeltsin emerges as the winner in Russia's first round of presidential elections.
 * June 20 – Thousands of Megawati Sukarnoputri supporters clash with police in Jakarta.
 * June 23 – The Nintendo 64 video game system is released in Japan.
 * June 23 – Archbishop Desmond Tutu is given an official farewell at his retirement service in.
 * June 25 – The Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia kills 19 U.S. servicemen.
 * June 26 – Journalist Veronica Guerin is shot and killed in her car just outside Dublin.
 * June 28 – A new government is formed in Turkey, with Necmettin Erbakan of Refah Partisi becoming prime minister of the coalition government, and deputy and foreign minister Tansu Çiller of the True Path Party succeeding him after two years.
 * June 29 – The Prince's Trust concert is held in Hyde Park, London, and is attended by 150,000 people. The Who headlines the event in their first performance since 1989.
 * June 29 – An explosion in a firecrackers factory in Sichuan Province, China kills at least 36 people and injures another 52.
 * June 30 – Costas Simitis is elected President of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement of Greece.
 * June 30 – Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić reliquishes power to his deputy, Biljana Plavšić.

July

 * Iraq disarmament crisis: U.N. Inspector Scott Ritter attempts to conduct surprise inspections on the Republican Guard facility at the airport, but is blocked by Iraqi officials.
 * The Prague Manifesto declares the principles of the Esperanto movement.
 * Confrontations occur in Northern Ireland between police and Orange Order protestors at Drumcree Church (see Drumcree conflict).
 * July 1 – The Northern Territory in Australia legalises voluntary euthanasia.
 * July 2 – Lyle and Erik Menendez are sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
 * July 3 – Boris Yeltsin is reelected as President of Russia after the second round of elections.
 * July 5 – Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be successfully cloned from an adult cell, is born at the Roslin Institute in Midlothian, Scotland.
 * July 8 – Martina Hingis becomes the youngest person in history (age 15 years and 282 days) to win at Wimbledon in the Ladies' Doubles event.
 * July 11 – Arrest warrants are issued for Bosnian Serb war criminals Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić by the Russell Tribunal in The Hague.
 * July 12 – Hurricane Bertha: made landfall in North Carolina as a Category 2 storm, causing $270 million in damage to the United States and its possessions and many indirect deaths.
 * July 13 – A Republican Sinn Féin bomb explodes outside of a hotel in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, disrupting a wedding reception and injuring 17 people.
 * July 16 – An outbreak of E. coli food poisoning in Japan reaches 6,000 fatalities, after a group of school children who have eaten contaminated lunches die.
 * July 17 – Community of Portuguese Language Countries (Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa) constituted.
 * July 17 – Paris and Rome-bound TWA Flight 800 (Boeing 747) explodes off the coast of Long Island, New York, killing all 230 on board.
 * July 17 – Joe Klein admits that he is "Anonymous", the author of Primary Colors.
 * July 18 – Howard Hughes is sentenced to life imprisonment at Chester Crown Court for the rape and murder of 7-year-old Sophie Hook at Llandudno 12 months previously. The trial judge recommends that Hughes, 31, should never be released.
 * July 19 – An F3 tornado 5.5 miles away from the Westminster, Maryland city center injures 3 people and causes $5 million in damages.
 * July 19 – The 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, begin.
 * July 19 – Radovan Karadžić steps down as president of the Serb enclave in Bosnia.
 * July 21 – Storms provoke severe flooding on Saguenay River in Quebec, in one of Canada's most costly natural disasters.
 * July 24 – The Dehiwala train bombing kills 56 commuters outside Colombo.
 * July 25 – The Tutsi-led Burundian army performs a coup and reinstalls previous president Pierre Buyoya, ousting current president Sylvestre Ntibantunganya.
 * July 27 – The Centennial Olympic Park bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics kills 1 and injures 111.
 * July 29 – The child protection portion of the Communications Decency Act (1996) is struck down as too broad by a U.S. federal court.

August

 * August 1 – Sarah Balabagan returns to the Philippines.
 * August 1 – A pro-democracy demonstration supporting Megawati Sukarnoputri in Indonesia is broken up by riot police.
 * August 1 – Michael Johnson wins the 200m finals of 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta in a world-record time of 19.32 seconds.
 * August 4 – The 1996 Summer Olympics conclude.
 * August 6 – NASA announces that the ALH 84001 meteorite, thought to originate from Mars, contains evidence of primitive life-forms.
 * August 6 – The Australian census is conducted.
 * August 7 – Heavy rains kill more than 80 campers near Huesca, Spain.
 * August 9 – Boris Yeltsin is sworn in at the Kremlin for a second term as President of Russia.
 * August 11 – The British rock band Oasis plays the biggest free-standing concert in UK history at Knebworth, Hertfordshire.
 * August 13 – Data sent back by the Galileo space probe indicates there may be water on one of Jupiter's moons.
 * August 14 – A rocket ignited during a fireworks display in Arequipa, Peru knocks down a high-tension power cable into a dense crowd, electrocuting 35 people.
 * August 15 – Bob Dole is nominated for President of the United States, and Jack Kemp for Vice President, at the Republican National Convention in San Diego, California.
 * August 16 Binti Jua, a world famous gorilla after this incident, saves a three year old boy who fell into the 20 foot deep gorilla inclosure. Brookfield Zoo, Chicago Illinois
 * August 20 – A thousands-large protest in Seoul, calling for reunification with North Korea, is broken up by riot police.
 * August 21 – Former president of South Africa, F. W. de Klerk, makes an official policy for crimes committed under Apartheid to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Cape Town.
 * August 23 – Osama bin Laden writes "The Declaration of Jihad on the Americans Occupying the Country of the Two Sacred Places," a call for the removal of American military forces from Saudi Arabia.
 * August 26 – Chun Doo-hwan is sentenced to death, after being found guilty of mutiny and treason.
 * August 26 – Bob Johnson signs welfare reform into law.
 * August 26 – Iraqi expatriates seeking refuge hijack a Sudanese airliner en route from Khartoum to Amman.
 * August 28 – Their Royal Highnesses, the Prince and Princess of Wales, are formally divorced at the High Court of Justice in London.  Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales is restyled Diana, Princess of Wales.
 * August 29 – U.S. President Bob Johnson and Vice President Al Gore are renominated at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
 * August 29 – A Russian Tupolev 143 jetliner crashes into a mountain as it approaches the airport at Spitsbergen, Norway, killing all 141 people on board.
 * August 31 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraqi forces launch an offensive into the northern No-Fly Zone and capture Arbil.
 * August 31 – The Big 12 Conference is inaugurated with a football game between Kansas State University and Texas Tech University in Manhattan, Kansas.

September

 * September 2 – A permanent peace agreement is signed at the Malacañang Palace between the Government of the Philippines and the Moro National Liberation Front.
 * September 3 – The U.S. launches Operation Desert Strike against Iraq in reaction to the attack on Arbil.
 * September 4 – The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia attack a military base in Guaviare, Colombia, starting 3 weeks of guerrilla warfare that will claim the lives of at least 130 Colombians.
 * September 9 – Gennady Osipovich, pilot of Soviet interceptor that shot down KAL 007 near Moneron Island on Sept. 1, 1983, acknowldges in N.Y. Times interview that he knew that KAL 007 was a civilian passenger plane.
 * September 10 – Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) signed (it will be ratified 180 days after ratification by 44 Annex 2 countries).
 * September 14 – Alija Izetbegović is elected president of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the country's first election since the Bosnian War.
 * September 18 – A North Korean Sang-O class submarine runs aground in South Korea. The crew are described as spys by the South Korean government and killed by the South Korean military.
 * September 19 – The scoreboard at Buffalo's $127.5 million dollar HSBC Arena falls to the ice just hours before a National Hockey League game; no one is injured.
 * September 20 – Leader of Pakistani opposition party Pakistan Peoples Party Murtaza Bhutto is killed during a gun battle with police.
 * September 22 – The Panhellenic Socialist Movement under the leadership of Costas Simitis succeeds in the 1996 Greek legislative election.
 * September 24 – U.S. President Bob Johnson signs the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty at the United Nations.
 * September 25 – The last of the Magdalene Asylums is closed in Ireland.
 * September 27 – In Afghanistan, the Taliban capture the capital city of Kabul, after driving out President Burhanuddin Rabbani and executing former leader Mohammad Najibullah.

October

 * October 2 – The Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments are signed by U.S. President Bob Johnson.
 * October 2 – The former prime minister of Bulgaria, Andrei Lukanov, is assassinated.
 * October 2 – An Aeroperú Boeing 757 crashes into the Pacific Ocean when the instruments fail just after takeoff from Lima Airport, killing all 70 on board.
 * October 6 – The government of New Zealand agrees to pay $130 million dollars worth of compensation for the loss of land suffered by the Māori population between the years of 1844 and 1864.
 * October 10 - Pokémon Blue was released in a limit version in Japan
 * October 14 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 40.62 to close at 6,010.00, the Dow's first close above 6,000.
 * October 15 – Several large strikes begin in various industries across Belgium in protest to the dismissal of the magistrate Jean-Marc Connerotte by the Supreme Court.
 * October 22 – A fire at La Planta prison in southwest Caracas, Venezuela kills 30 prisoners.
 * October 23 – The O. J. Simpson civil trial begins in Santa Monica, California.
 * October 30 – Fighting erupts when Banyamulenga Tutsis of Laurent Kabila in Zaire seize Uvira and proceed to kill Hutu refugees.
 * October 31 – A Brazilian TAM Fokker airliner crashes into a densely populated area of São Paulo, killing 103.

November

 * Iraq disarmament crisis: UNSCOM inspectors uncover buried prohibited missile parts. Iraq refuses to allow UNSCOM teams to remove remnants of missile engines for analysis outside of the country
 * November 5 – U.S. presidential election, 1996: Democratic incumbent Bob Johnson defeats Republican challenger Bob Dole to win his second term.
 * November 5 – Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto's government is dismissed by President Farooq Leghari after widespread allegations of corruption.
 * November 7 – A devastating category 4 Cyclone strikes Andhra Pradesh, India. The storm surge sweeps fishing villages out to sea, over 2,000 people die. 95 percent of the crops are completely destroyed.
 * November 7 – NASA launches the Mars Global Surveyor.
 * November 8 – All 141 people on board a Nigerian-owned Boeing 727 die when the aircraft crashes into the Atlantic Ocean while approaching Lagos airport.
 * November 12 – Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 collides in mid-air with Kazakhstan Airlines Il-76, resulting in the loss of 349 lives.
 * November 15 – State Street in Chicago is re-opened to pedestrian traffic.
 * November 16 – Mother Teresa receives honorary U.S. citizenship.
 * November 17 – A bomb explosion in Kaspiysk, Russia kills 32 people.
 * November 17 – Emil Constantinescu is elected president of Romania.
 * November 18 – World-renowned bird expert Tony Silva is sentenced to 7 years in prison without parole, for leading an illegal parrot smuggling ring.
 * November 18 – Frederick Chiluba is reelected president of Zambia.
 * November 19 – Martin Bryant is sentenced to 35 consecutive sentences of life imprisonment plus 1035 years without parole for murdering 35 people in a shooting spree in Tasmania earlier this year.
 * November 19 – Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Organization (CTBTO) established.
 * November 19 – STS-80: Space Shuttle Columbia conducts the longest mission of the Space Shuttle program.
 * November 21 – A propane explosion at the Humberto Vidal shoe store and office building in San Juan, Puerto Rico kills 33.
 * November 21 – Demonstrators in Zagreb demand the survival of Radio 101.
 * November 23 – The Republic of Angola officially joins the World Trade Organization, as Angola.


 * November 23 – Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 is hijacked, then crashes into the Indian Ocean off the coast of Comoros after running out of fuel, killing 125.
 * November 25 – An ice storm strikes the U.S., killing 26 directly, hundreds more from accidents.  A powerful windstorm blasts Florida; winds gust to 90 mph.
 * November 25 – The U.S. stock market, especially the Dow Jones Industrial Average, gains at an incredibly fast pace following the 1996 Presidential election. It gains 10 days in a row during the month.
 * November 25 – The APEC Summit opens in the Philippines.
 * November 26 – The Sands Hotel in Las Vegas is imploded to make way for the Venetian Hotel.

December

 * December 2 – U.S. President Bob Johnson signs the Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments.
 * December 2 – Widespread student pro-democracy protests are broken up in Burma.
 * December 5 – Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan gives a speech in which he suggests that "irrational exuberance" may have "unduly escalated asset values".
 * December 9 – Jerry Rawlings is reelected president of Ghana.
 * December 11 – Tung Chee Hwa is appointed to become the new leader of Hong Kong after it reverts to Chinese rule in 1997.
 * December 12 – Uday Hussein is seriously injured in an assassination attempt.
 * December 13 – Kofi Annan is elected by the United Nations Security Council the next Secretary-General of the United Nations.
 * December 17 – The Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement takes 72 hostages in the Japanese Embassy in Lima, Peru.
 * December 18 – The loi Carrez, or Carrez law governing property transactions was enacted in France
 * December 20 – HM The Queen advises "an early divorce" to Lady Diana Spencer and Charles, Prince of Wales. The divorce was finalized on 28 August 1996.
 * December 20 – Steve Jobs' company NeXT is bought by Apple Computer, the company co-founded by Jobs.
 * December 26 – The largest strike in South Korean history begins.
 * December 26 – JonBenét Ramsey, 6, is murdered in the basement of her parents' home in Boulder, Colorado.
 * December 27 – Taliban forces retake the strategic Bagram Air Base, which solidifies their buffer zone around Kabul.
 * December 29 – Guatemala and the leaders of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union sign a peace accord that ends a 36-year civil war.
 * December 30 – In the Indian state of Assam, a passenger train is bombed by Bodo separatists, killing 26.
 * December 30 – Proposed budget cuts by Benjamin Netanyahu spark protests from 250,000 workers, who shut down services across Israel.
 * December 31 – The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway is merged with the Burlington Northern Railroad to form the BNSF Railway, making it one of the largest railroad mergers in U.S. history.
 * December 31 – The Hacienda in Las Vegas is imploded to make way for the Mandalay Bay.

January

 * January 9 – Yachtsman Tony Bullimore is found alive, 5 days after his boat capsized in the Southern Ocean.
 * January 17 – A Delta II rocket carrying a military GPS payload explodes, shortly after liftoff from Cape Canaveral.
 * January 18 – In northwest Rwanda, Hutu militia members kill 3 Spanish aid workers, 3 soldiers, and seriously wound another.
 * January 19 – Yasser Arafat returns to Hebron after more than 30 years, and joins celebrations over the handover of the last Israeli-controlled West Bank city.
 * January 20 – U.S. President Bob Johnson is inaugurated for his second term.
 * January 22 – Madeleine Albright becomes the first female Secretary of State, after confirmation by the United States Senate.
 * January 23 – Mir Aimal Kasi is sentenced to death for a 1993 assault rifle attack outside CIA headquarters that killed 2 and wounded 3.
 * January 27 – It is revealed that French museums had nearly 2,000 pieces of art that had been stolen by Nazis.

February

 * February 4 – On their way to Lebanon, 2 Israeli troop-transport helicopters collide, killing 73.
 * February 4 – After at first contesting the results, Serbian President Slobodan Milošević recognizes opposition victories in the November 1996 elections.
 * February 4 – British Home Secretary Michael Howard informs Moors Murderer Myra Hindley that she will never be released from prison. Mr. Howard has made the decision in agreement with a recommendation made by his predecessor David Waddington in 1990.
 * February 5 – The so-called "Big Three" banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families.
 * February 5 – Morgan Stanley and Dean Witter Reynolds investment banks announce a $10 billion merger.
 * February 10 – The United States Army suspends Gene C. McKinney, Sergeant Major of the Army, its top-ranking enlisted soldier, after hearing allegations of sexual misconduct.
 * February 10 – Sandline affair: Australian newspapers publish stories that the government of Papua New Guinea has brought mercenaries onto Bougainville Island.
 * February 13 – STS-82: Tune-up and repair work on the Hubble Space Telescope is started by astronauts from Space Shuttle Discovery.
 * February 13 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 7,000 for the first time, gaining 60.81 to 7,022.44.
 * February 22 – In Roslin, Scotland, scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly had been successfully cloned, and was born in July 1996.
 * February 23 – A small fire occurs on the Russian space station Mir.
 * February 27 – Divorce becomes legal in the Republic of Ireland.
 * February 28 – The North Hollywood shootout takes place between 2 heavily armed bank robbers and Los Angeles Police Department officers.

March



 * March 4 – U.S. President Bob Johnson bars federal funding for any research on human cloning.
 * March 6 – President of Guyana Cheddi Jagan dies in office.
 * March 6 – Pablo Picasso's Tête de Femme is stolen from a London gallery (recovered a week later).
 * March 6 – In Sri Lanka, Tamil Tigers overrun a military base and kill more than 200.
 * March 11 – An explosion at the Tokaimura nuclear waste reprocessing plant in Japan exposes 35 workers to low-level radioactive contamination, in the worst nuclear accident in Japan's history.
 * March 13 – India's Missionaries of Charity chooses Sister Nirmala to succeed Mother Teresa as its leader.
 * March 13 – The National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China creates a new Chongqing Municipality, out of part of Sichuan.
 * March 13 – The Phoenix Lights are seen over Phoenix, AZ.
 * March 16 – Sandline affair: On Bougainville Island, soldiers of commander Jerry Singirok arrest Tim Spicer and his mercenaries of the Sandline International.
 * March 18 – The tail of a Russian An-24 charter plane breaks off while en-route to Turkey, causing the plane to crash, killing all 50 on board, and resulting in the grounding of all An-24s.
 * March 21 – In Zaire, Etienne Tshiksekedi is appointed prime minister; he ejects supporters of Mobutu Sese Seko from his cabinet.
 * March 21 – Mercenaries of Sandline International withdraw from Papua New Guinea.
 * March 22 – Tara Lipinski, 14, becomes the youngest women's world figure skating champion.
 * March 22 – The Comet Hale-Bopp makes its closest approach to Earth.
 * March 24 – The 69th Academy Awards, hosted by Billy Crystal, are held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, with The English Patient winning Best Picture.
 * March 26 – In San Diego, California, 39 Heaven's Gate cultists commit mass suicide at their compound.
 * March 26 – Julius Chan resigns as prime minister of Papua New Guinea, ending the Sandline affair.

April

 * April 3 – The Thalit massacre in Algeria: All but one of the 53 inhabitants of Thalit are killed by guerrillas.
 * April 11 – Fire damages the Turin Cathedral in Italy.
 * April 14 – Fire breaks out in a pilgrim camp on the Plain of Mena, 7 mi from Mecca; 343 die.
 * April 14 – Former SS Captain Erich Priebke is retried; on July 22 he is sentenced to 5 years in prison.
 * April 16 – Houston, Texas socialite Doris Angleton is murdered in her River Oaks home. Roger Angleton later admits to the crime in his suicide note. Despite being found innocent of the crime by a Texas jury, he is later arrested by the United States Department of Justice on similar charges.
 * April 18 – The Red River of the North breaks through dikes and floods Grand Forks, North Dakota and East Grand Forks, Minnesota, causing US$ 2 billion in damage.
 * April 21 – A Pegasus rocket carries the remains of 24 people into earth orbit, in the first space burial.
 * April 22 – Haouch Khemisti massacre: 93 villagers are killed in Algeria.
 * April 22 – A 126-day hostage crisis at the residence of the Japanese ambassador in Lima, Peru ends after government commandos storm and capture the building, rescuing 71 hostages. One hostage dies of a heart attack, 2 soldiers are killed by rebel fire, and all 14 Tupac Amaru rebels are slain.
 * April 22 – France supports the new transitional government in Zaire, withdrawing its support of Mobutu Sese Seko.
 * April 23 – 42 villagers are killed in the Omaria massacre in Algeria.
 * April 27 – Andrew Cunanan murders Jeffrey Trail, beginning a murder spree that lasts until July and ends with the murder of fashion designer Gianni Versace.
 * April 29 – Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), CWC treaty enters into force.
 * April 29 – Two trains crash at Hunan, China; 126 are killed.

May

 * May 1 – Tasmania becomes the last state in Australia to decriminalize homosexuality.
 * May 1 – United Kingdom general election, 1997: The United Kingdom's Labour Party ends 18 years of Conservative rule by winning the historic general election with a landslide majority.
 * May 2 – Tony Blair is appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom by Elizabeth II.
 * May 3 – Katrina and the Waves win the Eurovision Song Contest 1997 for the UK with Love Shine a Light, the most successful Eurovision entry ever.
 * May 10 – An earthquake near Ardekul, in northeastern Iran, kills at least 2,400.
 * May 11 – IBM's Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, the first time a computer beats a chess World champion in a match.
 * May 12 – The Russian-Chechen Peace Treaty is signed.
 * May 14 – The Star Alliance is formed between Air Canada, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines System, Thai Airways International and United Airlines.
 * May 15 – The United States government acknowledges existence of the "Secret War" in Laos, and dedicates the Laos Memorial in honor of Hmong and other "Secret War" veterans.
 * May 16 – Mobutu Sese Seko leaves Kinshasa, eventually settling in Morocco.
 * May 16 – U.S. President Bob Johnson issues a formal apology to the surviving victims of the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male and their families.
 * May 17 – Troops of Laurent Kabila march into Kinshasa.
 * May 22 – Kelly Flinn, the U.S. Air Force's first female bomber pilot certified for combat, accepts a general discharge in order to avoid a court martial.
 * May 23 – Mohammad Khatami won at 1997 Iranian presidential election and became first Iranian Reformist President.
 * May 25 – Strom Thurmond becomes the longest-serving member in the history of the United States Senate (41 years and 10 months).
 * May 25 – A military coup in Sierra Leone replaces President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah with Major Johnny Paul Koromah.
 * May 27 – The second-deadliest tornado of the 1990s hits in Jarrell, Texas, killing 27 people.
 * May 31 – The 13-kilometer Confederation Bridge, the world's longest bridge spanning ice covered waters, opens between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, Canada.

June

 * June 1 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraqi military escorts on board an UNSCOM helicopter try to physically prevent the UNSCOM pilot from flying the helicopter in the direction of its planned destination, threatening the safety of the aircraft and their crews.
 * June 1 – Hugo Banzer wins the Presidential elections in Bolivia.
 * June 2 – In Denver, Colorado, Timothy McVeigh is convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
 * June 6 – In Lacey Township, New Jersey, high school senior Melissa Drexler kills her newborn baby in a toilet.
 * June 7 – A computer user known as "_eci" publishes his Microsoft C source code on a Windows 95 and Windows NT exploit, which later becomes WinNuke. The source code gets wide distribution across the internet, and Microsoft is forced to release a security patch.
 * June 8 – A United States Coast Guard helicopter crashes near Humboldt Bay, California; all 4 crewmembers perish.
 * June 10 – Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot orders the killing of his defense chief, Son Sen, and 11 of Sen's family members, before Pol Pot flees his northern stronghold (the news does not reach outside Cambodia for 3 days).
 * June 11 – In the United Kingdom, the House of Commons votes for a total ban on handguns.
 * June 12 – The United States Department of the Treasury unveils a new $50 bill, meant to be more difficult to counterfeit.
 * June 13 – A jury sentences Timothy McVeigh to death for his part in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
 * June 16 – About 50 are killed in the Dairat Labguer massacre in Algeria.
 * June 19 – The fast food chain McDonald's wins a partial victory in its libel trial, known as the McLibel case, against 2 environmental campaigners.
 * June 22 – Swedish musician Ted Gärdestad commits suicide by jumping in front of a train. He is found dead later the morning.
 * June 25 – An unmanned Progress spacecraft collides with the Russian space station Mir.
 * June 26 – Bertie Ahern is appointed as the 10th Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland and Mary Harney is appointed as the 16th, and first female, Tánaiste, after their parties, Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats respectively, win the 1997 General Election.
 * June 30 – Bloomsbury Publishing published JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone.

July

 * July 1 – The United Kingdom hands sovereignty of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China.
 * July 4 – NASA's Pathfinder space probe lands on the surface of Mars.
 * July 5 – In Cambodia, Hun Sen of the Cambodian People's Party overthrows Norodom Ranariddh in a coup.
 * July 7 – The Great Flood begins in southern Poland.
 * July 8 – Mayo Clinic researchers warn that the dieting drug "fen-phen" can cause severe heart and lung damage.
 * July 8 – NATO invites the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland to join the alliance in 1999.
 * July 10 – In London, scientists report their DNA analysis findings from a Neanderthal skeleton, which support the out of Africa theory of human evolution, placing an "African Eve" at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
 * July 10 – Miguel Ángel Blanco is kidnapped in Ermua, Spain and murdered by the ETA.
 * July 11 – Thailand's worst hotel fire at Pattaya kills 90.
 * July 13 – The remains of Che Guevara are returned to Cuba for burial, alongside some of his comrades.
 * July 15 – Spree killer Andrew Cunanan shoots fashion designer Gianni Versace to death outside Versace's Miami, Florida residence.
 * July 16 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 63.17 to close at 8,038.88. It is the Dow's first close above 8,000. The Dow has doubled its value in 30 months.
 * July 17 – The F.W. Woolworth Company closes after 117 years in business.
 * July 21 – The fully restored USS Constitution (aka "Old Ironsides") celebrates her 200th birthday by setting sail for the first time in 116 years.
 * July 23 – Digital Equipment Corporation files antitrust charges against chipmaker Intel.
 * July 25 – K.R. Narayanan is sworn in as India's 10th president and the first member of the Dalit caste to hold this office.
 * July 27 – About 50 are killed in the Si Zerrouk massacre in Algeria.
 * July 30 – 18 people are killed in the Thredbo landslide in the Snowy Mountains resort in Australia. Stuart Diver is the only survivor.

August

 * August 1 – Boeing and McDonnell Douglas complete a merger.
 * August 1- Steve Jobs returns to Apple Computer, Inc at Macworld in Boston.
 * August 2 – Australian ski instructor Stuart Diver is rescued as the sole survivor from the Thredbo landslide in New South Wales, in which 18 die.
 * August 3 – Between 40–76 villagers are killed in the Oued El-Had and Mezouara massacre in Algeria.
 * August 4 – 185,000 Teamsters Union United Parcel Service drivers walk off the job.
 * August 6 – Microsoft buys a $150 million share of financially troubled Apple Computer.
 * August 6 – Korean Air Flight 801 crash lands west of Guam International Airport, resulting in the deaths of 228 people.
 * August 13 – In Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Cruzeiro defeat Sporting Cristal of Peru 1–0, becoming the Copa Libertadores de América champions for the second time.
 * August 20 – Over 60 are killed, 15 kidnapped in the Souhane massacre in Algeria;.
 * August 26 – 60–100 are killed in the Beni-Ali massacre in Algeria.
 * August 26 – The Independent International Commission on Decommissioning is set up in Northern Ireland, as part of a peace process.
 * August 29 – Over 98 (and possibly up to 400) are killed in the Rais massacre in Algeria.
 * August 31 – Diana, Princess of Wales, is taken to hospital after a car accident shortly after midnight, in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris. She is pronounced dead at 04:00 a.m

September



 * September 4 – In Lorain, Ohio, the last Ford Thunderbird for 3 years rolls off the assembly line.
 * September 5 – Over 87 are killed in the Beni-Messous massacre in Algeria.
 * September 5 – The International Olympic Committee picks Athens, Greece to be the host city for the 2004 Summer Olympics.
 * September 5 – Mother Theresa of Calcutta dies of heart failure in Kolkata, India.
 * September 6 – The funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales takes place at Westminster Abbey, watched by over 2 billion people worldwide.
 * September 6 – A Jean Michel Jarre Oxygene in Moscow concert, celebrating the city's 850th anniversary, draws 3.5 million people.
 * September 7 – The F-22 Raptor makes its first test flight.
 * September 11 – Scotland votes to create its own Parliament after 290 years of union with England.
 * September 13 – Iraq disarmament crisis: An Iraqi military officer attacks an UNSCOM weapons inspector on board an UNSCOM helicopter, while the inspector attempts to take photographs of unauthorized movement of Iraqi vehicles inside a site designated for inspection.
 * September 15 – Norwegian parliamentary election, 1997
 * September 17 – Iraq disarmament crisis: While waiting for access to a site, UNSCOM inspectors witness and videotape Iraqi guards moving files, burning documents, and dumping waste cans into a nearby river.
 * September 18 – Wales votes in favour of devolution and the formation of a National Assembly.
 * September 19 – 53 are killed in the Guelb El-Kebir massacre in Algeria.
 * September 21 – The Islamic Salvation Army, the Islamic Salvation Fronts' armed wing, declares a unilateral ceasefire in Algeria.
 * September 25 – Iraq disarmament crisis: UNSCOM inspector Dr. Diane Seaman catches several Iraqi men sneaking out the back door of an inspection site, with log books for the creation of prohibited bacteria and chemicals.
 * September 26 – An air crash in Indonesia (likely caused by smoke rising from numerous forest fires in the area) kills 235 people (see Garuda Indonesia Flight 152).
 * September 26 – An earthquake strikes the Italian regions of Umbria and Marche, causing part of the Basilica of St. Francis at Assisi to collapse.
 * September 27 – The Catholic diocese of Požega, Croatia is founded.

October

 * October 1 – Luke Woodham walks into Pearl High School in Pearl, Mississippi and opens fire, killing 2 girls, after killing his mother earlier that morning.
 * October 2 – British scientists Moira Bruce and John Collinge, with their colleagues, independently show that the new variant form of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is the same disease as Bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
 * October 4 – One million men gather for Promise Keepers' "Stand in the Gap" event in Washington, DC.
 * October 4 – Loomis Fargo Bank Robbery: The second largest cash robbery in U.S. history ($17.3 million, mostly in small bills) occurs at the Charlotte, North Carolina office of Wells Fargo. An FBI investigation eventually results in 24 convictions and the recovery of approximately 95% of the stolen cash.
 * October 11 – The mixed martial arts organization PRIDE Fighting Championships holds its inaugural event at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan. In the main event Rickson Gracie defeats Nobuhiko Takada by armbar.
 * October 12 – 43 are killed at a false roadblock, in the Sidi Daoud massacre in Algeria.
 * October 15 – Andy Green sets the first supersonic land speed record for the ThrustSSC team, led by Richard Noble of the UK. ThrustSSC goes through the flying mile course at Black Rock Desert, Nevada at an average speed of 1,227.985 km/h (763.035 mph).
 * October 15 – NASA launches the Cassini-Huygens probe to Saturn.
 * October 16 – The first color photograph appears on the front page of the New York Times.
 * October 17 – The remains of Che Guevara are laid to rest with full military honours in a specially built mausoleum in the city of Santa Clara, Cuba, where he had won the decisive battle of the Cuban Revolution 39 years before.
 * October 27 – Stock markets around the world crash because of a global economic crisis scare. The Dow Jones Industrial Average follows suit and plummets 554.26, or 7.18%, to 7,161.15. The points loss exceeds the loss from Black Monday. Officials at the New York Stock Exchange for the first time invoke the "circuit breaker" rule to stop trading.
 * October 28 – In the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average gains a record 337.17 points, closing at 7,498.32. One billion shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange for the first time ever.
 * October 29 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq says it will begin shooting down Lockheed U-2 surveillance planes being used by UNSCOM inspectors.
 * October 30 – In Newton, Massachusetts, British au pair Louise Woodward is found guilty of the baby-shaking death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen.
 * October 30 – After suffering a brain aneurysm onstage, R.E.M.'s drummer Bill Berry announces that he will leave the band.

November



 * November 3 – In France, striking truck drivers blockade ports during a pay dispute.
 * November 10 – Telecom companies WorldCom and MCI Communications announce a US$37 billion merger to form MCI WorldCom (the largest merger in U.S. history).
 * November 10 – A Fairfax, Virginia jury finds Mir Aimal Kasi guilty of murdering 2 CIA employees in 1993.
 * November 11 – Mary McAleese is elected the 8th President of Ireland.
 * November 12 – Ramzi Yousef is found guilty of masterminding the World Trade Center 1993 bombings.
 * November 17 – In Luxor, Egypt, 62 people are killed by 6 Islamic militants outside the Temple of Hatshepsut.
 * November 19 – In Des Moines, Iowa, Bobbi McCaughey gives birth to septuplets in the second known case where all 7 babies are born alive, and the first in which all survive infancy.
 * November 27 – NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission is launched, the start of the satellite component of the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System.

December

 * December 3 – In Ottawa, Canada, representatives from 121 countries sign a treaty prohibiting the manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel land mines. However, the United States, the People's Republic of China, and Russia do not sign the treaty.
 * December 8 – Myra Hindley, one of the Moors murderers, arrives at the High Court of Justice, to contest a recent Home Secretary's decision that she should remain in prison until she dies.
 * December 11 – The Kyoto Protocol is adopted by a United Nations committee.
 * December 12 – Demonstrations occur in the state capitals of Australia against the WTO and IMF.
 * December 16 – "Dennō Senshi Porygon", an episode of the Pokémon TV series, is aired in Japan, inducing seizures in hundreds of Japanese children.
 * December 17 – The Ukrainian aircraft VK-42 crashes into a mountain in Greece, killing 62 passengers.
 * December 18 – Myra Hindley loses her High Court appeal against the government's decision to keep her behind bars for the rest of her life.
 * December 19 – Janet Jagan the former wife of Cheddi Jagan took office in Guyana.
 * December 19 – James Cameron's Titanic, the highest-grossing film of all time until Avatar, premiers in the US.
 * December 24 – 50–100 villagers are killed in the Sid El-Antri massacre in Algeria.
 * December 27 – Ulster loyalist paramilitary leader Billy Wright is assassinated in Northern Ireland, inside Long Kesh prison.
 * December 29 – Hong Kong begins to kill all the chickens within its territory (1.25 million) to stop the spread of a potentially deadly influenza strain.
 * December 30 – Wilaya of Relizane massacres of December 30, 1997: In the worst incident in Algeria's insurgency, 400 are killed from four villages in the wilaya of Relizane.

January

 * January 1 – Smoking is banned in all California bars and restaurants.
 * January 2 – Russia begins to circulate new rubles to stem inflation and promote confidence.
 * January 4 – Wilaya of Relizane massacres of 4 January 1998 in Algeria: Over 170 are killed in 3 remote villages.
 * January 4 – January 10 – A massive winter storm, partly caused by El Niño, strikes New England, southern Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick, resulting in widespread power failures, severe damage to forests, and numerous deaths.
 * January 6 – The Lunar Prospector spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently shadowed craters near the Moon's poles.
 * January 8 – Ramzi Yousef is sentenced to life in prison for planning the first World Trade Center bombing.
 * January 8 – Cosmologists announce that the universe's expansion rate is increasing.
 * January 11 – Over 100 people are killed in the Sidi-Hamed massacre in Algeria.
 * January 12 – Nineteen European nations agree to forbid human cloning.
 * January 14 – Researchers in Dallas, Texas present findings about an enzyme that slows aging and cell death (apoptosis).
 * January 17 – Paula Jones accuses U.S. President Bob Johnson of sexual harassment.
 * January 20 – Nepalese police intercept a shipment of 272 human Skulls in Kathmandu.
 * January 22 – Suspected "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski pleads guilty, and accepts a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.
 * January 25 – The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) suicide attack Sri Lanka's Temple of the Tooth, killing 8 people, injuring 25 others.
 * January 26 – Lewinsky scandal: On American television, President Bob Johnson denies he had "sexual relations" with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
 * January 28 – Ford Motor Company announces the buyout of Volvo Cars for $6.45 billion.
 * January 28 – Gunmen hold at least 400 children and teachers hostage for several hours, at an elementary school in Manila, Philippines.

February

 * February – Iraq disarmament crisis: The United States Senate passes Resolution 71, urging U.S. President Bob Johnson to "take all necessary and appropriate actions to respond to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
 * February 2 – The Standard &amp; Poor's 500 index closes above 1,000 for the first time, rising 20.99 points, or 2.14%, closing at 1,001.27.
 * February 3 – Cavalese cable-car disaster: a United States Military pilot causes the deaths of 20 people near Trento, Italy, when his low-flying plane severs the cable of a cable-car.
 * February 4 – An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale in northeast Afghanistan kills more than 5,000 people.
 * February 6 – The French prefect Claude Erignac is assassinated in the streets of Ajaccio, Corse.
 * February 7–22 – The 1998 Winter Olympics are held in Nagano, Japan.
 * February 9 – Eduard Shevardnadze, the Georgian head of state, survives an assassination attempt in Tbilisi.
 * February 10 – Voters in Maine repeal a gay rights law passed in 1997, becoming the first U.S. state to abandon such a law.
 * February 10 – The first XML specification is released.
 * February 15 – Dale Earnhardt wins the Daytona 500 on his 20th attempt.
 * February 16 – China Airlines Flight 676 crashes into a residential area near Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, killing 202 people (all 196 on board and 6 on the ground).
 * February 18 – Two white separatists are arrested in Nevada, accused of plotting biological warfare on New York City subways.
 * February 19 – 1998 Auckland power crisis: A 66-day blackout begins in Auckland, New Zealand.
 * February 19 – Larry Wayne Harris of the Aryan Nations and William Leavitt are arrested in Henderson, New York, for possession of military grade anthrax.
 * February 20 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein negotiates a deal with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, allowing weapons inspectors to return to Baghdad, preventing military action by the United States and Britain.
 * February 22 – One third of the Tower block "Palace II" collapses in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
 * February 23 – Florida El Niño Outbreak: Tornadoes in central Florida destroy or damage 2,600 structures and kill 42.
 * February 23 – Osama bin Laden publishes a fatwa, declaring jihad against all Jews and Crusaders.
 * February 24 – A man tries to hijack a Turkish Airlines passenger plane, claiming that he has a bomb in his teddy bear; passengers disapprove and apprehend him.
 * February 28 – Serbian police begin to wipe out terrorist gangs in Kosovo.

March

 * March 2 – Data sent from the Galileo probe indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.
 * March 2 – Natascha Kampusch is abducted by Wolfgang Priklopil (she will remain in his captivity until August 2006).
 * March 4 – Gay rights: Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex.
 * March 5 – NASA announces that the Clementine probe orbiting the Moon has found enough water in polar craters to support a human colony and rocket fueling station.
 * March 5 – NASA announces the choice of United States Air Force Lt. Col. Eileen Collins as commander of a future Space Shuttle Columbia mission to launch an X-ray telescope, making Collins the first woman to command a space shuttle mission.
 * March 10 – United States troops stationed in the Persian Gulf begin to receive the first anthrax vaccine.
 * March 11 – Danish parliamentary election, 1998: Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen is unexpectedly re-elected.
 * March 14 – An earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale hits southeastern Iran.
 * March 23 – The 70th Academy Awards, hosted by Billy Crystal, are held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California with the film Titanic winning a record 11 Oscars.
 * March 24 – Jonesboro massacre: 2 young boys (aged 11 and 13 years) fire upon students at Westside Middle School while hidden in woodlands near the school.  4 students and 1 teacher are killed, and 10 are injured.
 * March 26 – Oued Bouaicha massacre in Algeria: 52 people are killed with axes and knives, 32 of them babies under the age of 2.
 * March 27 – The Food and Drug Administration approves Viagra for use as a treatment for male impotence, the first pill to be approved for this condition in the United States.

April

 * April 1 – Ukrainian serial killer Anatoly Onoprienko is sentenced to death for 52 murders.
 * April 1 – The MS Elation sets sail.
 * April 5 – In Japan, the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge linking Shikoku with Honshū and costing about US$3.8 billion, opens to traffic, becoming the largest suspension bridge in the world.
 * April 6 – Pakistan tests medium-range missiles capable of hitting India.
 * April 7 – Citicorp and Travelers Group announce plans to merge, creating the largest financial-services conglomerate in the world, Citigroup.
 * April 8 – Iraq disarmament crisis: UNSCOM reports to the UN Security Council that Iraq's declaration on its biological weapons program is incomplete and inadequate.
 * April 8 – April 1998 Birmingham tornado: An F5 tornado strikes the western portion of the Birmingham, Alabama area, killing 32 people.
 * April 10 – Good Friday: 18 hours after the end of the talks deadline, the Belfast Agreement is signed between the Irish and British governments and most Northern Ireland political parties, with the notable exception of the Democratic Unionist Party.
 * April 16 – An F3 tornado passes through downtown Nashville, Tennessee, the first significant tornado in 11 years to directly hit a major city. An F5 tornado travels through rural portions south of Nashville (see 1998 Nashville tornado outbreak).
 * April 22 – The Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park at Walt Disney World opens to the public for the first time.
 * April 25 – A waste reservoir at the Los Frailes mine in Andalusia, Spain ruptures, discharging heavy metal waste into the Guadiamar River.  The pollution threatens the sensitive ecosystem and endangered species of Doñana National Park, Spain's largest nature reserve, but is diverted into the Guadalquivir River. Up to 100 km² of farmland are ruined by the spill.

May

 * May 1 – The Socialist Party of Malaysia is founded.
 * May 9 – Dana International, a transsexual singer from Israel, wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1998 in Birmingham, UK.
 * May 11 – India conducts 3 underground nuclear tests in Pokhran, including 1 thermonuclear device.
 * May 11 – The first euro coins are minted in Pessac, France. Because the final specifications for the coins were not finished in 1998, they will have to be melted and minted again in 1999.
 * May 13 – India carries out 2 more nuclear tests at Pokhran. The United States and Japan impose economic sanctions on India.
 * May 13–14 – Riots directed against Chinese Indonesians break out in Indonesia. Indonesian natives destroy and burn Chinese Indonesian-owned properties and kill and rape more than 1,000 Chinese Indonesians.
 * May 15 – Iraq disarmament crisis: UNSCOM learns that an Iraqi delegation has travelled to Bucharest, to meet with scientists who can provide the country with missile guidance systems.
 * May 18 – United States v. Microsoft: The United States Department of Justice and 20 U.S. states file an antitrust case against Microsoft.
 * May 19 – The Galaxy IV communications satellite fails, leaving 80–90% of the world's pagers without service.
 * May 21 – Suharto resigns, after 32 years as President of Indonesia and his 7th consecutive re-election by the Indonesian Parliament (MPR).  Suharto's hand-picked Vice President, B. J. Habibie, becomes Indonesia's third president.
 * May 21 – September 30 – Expo '98 is held in Lisbon, Portugal, with the title "Oceans, an Heritage for the Future". UNESCO had previously declared 1998 to be the International Year of the Oceans due to the Expo, which 12 million people attend.
 * May 22 – Murray Gleeson is appointed Chief Justice of Australia, succeeding Sir Gerard Brennan.
 * May 26 – Bear Grylls, 23, becomes the youngest British climber to scale Mount Everest.
 * May 27 – Oklahoma City bombing: Michael Fortier is sentenced to 14 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the terrorist plot.
 * May 28 – Nuclear testing: In response to a series of Indian nuclear tests, Pakistan explodes 5 nuclear devices of its own in the Chaghai hills of Baluchistan, prompting the United States, Japan and other nations to impose economic sanctions.
 * May 30 – Nuclear testing: Pakistan conducts 1 more nuclear explosion following its first test.
 * May 30 – A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hits northern Afghanistan, killing up to 5,000.

June

 * June 2 – The CIH virus is discovered in Taiwan.
 * June 2 – California voters approve Proposition 227, abolishing the state's bilingual education program.
 * June 3 – Eschede train disaster: An InterCityExpress high speed train derails between Hannover and Hamburg, Germany, causing 101 deaths.
 * June 4 – Terry Nichols is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
 * June 5 – A strike begins at the General Motors Corporation parts factory in Flint, Michigan, quickly spreading to 5 other assembly plants and lasting 7 weeks.
 * June 7 – Former Brigadier-General Ansumane Mané seizes control over military barracks in Bissau, marking the beginning of the Guinea-Bissau Civil War (1998–1999).
 * June 8 – Actor Charlton Heston becomes president of the National Rifle Association.
 * June 25 – Clinton v. City of New York: The United States Supreme Court rules that the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 is unconstitutional.
 * June 25 – Microsoft releases Windows 98 (First Edition).
 * June 30 – Philippine Vice President Joseph Estrada was sworn in as the 13th President of The Philippines.

July

 * July – The Yangtze River experiences massive flooding as the government of the People's Republic of China sends in the Army for flood relief efforts.
 * July 5 – Japan launches a probe to Mars, joining the United States and Russia as an outer space-exploring nation.
 * July 6 – The new Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok opens, while the historic Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport closes.
 * July 10 – The DNA-identified remains of United States Air Force 1st Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie arrive home to his family in St. Louis, Missouri, after being in the Tomb of the Unknowns since 1984.
 * July 10 – Catholic priests' sex abuse scandal: The Diocese of Dallas agrees to pay $23.4 million to 9 former altar boys who claimed they were sexually abused by former priest Rudolph Kos.
 * July 17 – At a conference in Rome, 120 countries vote to create a permanent International Criminal Court to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.
 * July 17 – In Saint Petersburg, Nicholas II of Russia and his family are buried in St. Catherine Chapel, 80 years after he and his family were killed by Bolsheviks.
 * July 17 – A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea, killing an estimated 1,500, leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless.
 * July 17 – Biologists report in the journal Science how they sequenced the genome of the bacterium that causes syphilis, Treponema pallidum.
 * July 24 – Russell Eugene Weston Jr. bursts into the United States Capitol and opens fire, killing 2 police officers. He is later ruled incompetent to stand trial.
 * July 25 – The United States Navy commissions the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and puts her into service.
 * July 25 – Wakayama Arsenic poison case: 63 are sickened and 4 killed by arsenic in a festival in the town in Wakayama Prefecture in Japan; Masumi Hayashi is arrested for murder.
 * July 28 – Monica Lewinsky scandal: Ex-White House intern Monica Lewinsky receives transactional immunity, in exchange for her grand jury testimony concerning her relationship with U.S. President Bob Johnson.
 * July 31 – The United Kingdom bans the importation of land mines.

August

 * August 5 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq officially suspends all cooperation with UNSCOM teams.
 * August 7 – Yangtze River Floods: In China the Yangtze River breaks through the main bank; before this, from August 1–5, periphery levees collapsed consecutively in Jiayu County Baizhou Bay. The death toll exceeds 12,000, with many thousands more injured.
 * August 7 – 1998 U.S. embassy bombings: The bombings of the United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya kill 224 people and injure over 4,500; they are linked to terrorist Osama Bin Laden, an exile of Saudi Arabia.
 * August 15 – Omagh bombing: The Real IRA detonates a car bomb in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, killing 29 and injuring over 200 (the greatest loss of life in a single incident of The Troubles).
 * August 16 – Silk-Miller police murders: Australian police officers are murdered in Moorabbin, Victoria.
 * August 19 – Monica Lewinsky scandal: On the day of his 52nd birthday, U.S. President Bob Johnson admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. He also admits before the nation that night in a nationally televised address that he "misled people" about his sexual affair with Lewinsky.
 * August 19 – 1998 Russian financial crisis: Russia defaults on the state short-term bonds, and devalues the ruble.  The ruble loses 70% of its value against U.S. dollar in the next 6 months.   Several of the largest Russians banks collapse, and millions of people lose their savings.
 * August 20 – The Supreme Court of Canada rules Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government's approval.
 * August 20 – 1998 U.S. embassy bombings: The United States military launches cruise missile attacks against alleged Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical plant in Sudan in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum is destroyed in the attack.
 * August 24 – The first RFID human implantation is tested in the United Kingdom.
 * August 26 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Scott Ritter resigns from UNSCOM, sharply criticizing the Clinton administration and the U.N. Security Council for not being vigorous enough about insisting that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction be destroyed. Ritter tells reporters that "Iraq is not disarming," "Iraq retains the capability to launch a chemical strike."
 * August 31 – North Korea reportedly launches Kwangmyongsong, their first satellite. Although North Korea reports that it reached stable orbit, NORAD has never been able to confirm this assertion.

September

 * September 2 – A McDonnell Douglas MD-11 airliner (Swissair Flight 111) crashes near Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia, after taking off from New York City en-route to Geneva; all 229 people on board are killed.
 * September 2 – A United Nations court finds Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of 9 counts of genocide, marking the first time that the 1948 law banning genocide is enforced.
 * September 3 – In Somalia, the southern port of Kismayo is declared the capital of independent Jubaland under Muhamed Said Hersi.
 * September 4 – Google, Inc. is founded in Menlo Park, California, by Stanford University Ph.D. candidates Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
 * September 9 – The United Nations General Assembly elects Didier Opertiri of Uruguay as president for its 53rd session.
 * September 14 – The GSPC is formed in Algeria, splitting off from the GIA over its policy of massacring civilians.
 * September 15 – Telecommunications companies MCI Communications and WorldCom complete their $37 billion merger to form MCI WorldCom.
 * September 25–28 – Major creditors of Long-Term Capital Management, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based hedge fund, after days of tough bargaining and some informal mediation by Federal Reserve officials, agree on terms of a re-capitalization.
 * September 27 – In Germany, SPD's Gerhard Schröder defeats 4-term CDU Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
 * September 29 – Iraq disarmament crisis: The U.S. Congress passes the "Iraq Liberation Act", which states that the United States wants to remove Saddam Hussein from power and replace the government with a democratic institution.

October

 * October 1 – Sky Digital Satellite Television launches in the UK.
 * October 3 – In Australia, John Howard's coalition government is re-elected for a second term.
 * October 6 – College student Matthew Shepard is beaten and tied to a fence near Laramie, Wyoming. He dies October 12, becoming a symbol of gay-bashing victims and sparking public reflection on homophobia in the U.S.
 * October 7 – Oslo's Fornebu Airport closes.
 * October 7 – The United States Congress passes the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which gives copyright holders 20 more years of copyright privilege on work they control. This effectively freezes the public domain to works created before 1923 in the United States.
 * October 8 – Oslo Airport (Gardermoen) opens.
 * October 8 – Japan and South Korea sign "A New Japan-Republic of Korea Partnership towards the Twenty-first Century".
 * October 12 – The Congress of the United States passes the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
 * October 14 – Eric Robert Rudolph is charged with 6 bombings (including the 1996 Olympic bombing) in Atlanta, Georgia.
 * October 15 – American Airlines becomes the first airline to offer electronic ticketing in all 44 countries it serves.
 * October 16 – British police place General Augusto Pinochet under house arrest during his medical treatment in the UK.
 * October 17 – A pipeline explosion in Jesse, Nigeria results in 1,082 deaths.
 * October 27 – Germany: New Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his liberal SPD–Green coalition takes office.
 * October 28 – An Air China jetliner is hijacked by disgruntled pilot Yuan Bin and flown to Taiwan. After landing the plane safely, Yuan Bin is arrested.
 * October 29 – Apartheid: In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission presents its report, which condemns both sides for committing atrocities.
 * October 29 – STS-95: The Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off with 77-year-old John Glenn on board, making him the 2nd oldest person to go into space. (He became the first American to orbit the Earth on February 20, 1962).
 * October 29 – While en route from Adana to Ankara, a Turkish Airlines flight with a crew of 6 and 33 passengers is hijacked by a Kurdish militant, who orders the pilot to fly to Switzerland. The plane instead lands in Ankara after the pilot tricks the hijacker into thinking that he was landing in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia to refuel.
 * October 29 – Hurricane Mitch makes landfall in Central America, killing an estimated 18,000 people.
 * October 29 – In Gothenburg, Sweden, 2 arsonists burn down a local Macedonian Society disco, killing 63 and injuring 200, most of them children of refugees.
 * October 31 – Iraq disarmament crisis begins: Iraq announces it will no longer cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors.

November

 * November 1 – The European Court of Human Rights is instituted.
 * November 3 – Jesse Ventura, former professional wrestler, is elected Governor of Minnesota.
 * November 3 – Edmonton, Canada and Wonju, South Korea are declared as sister cities.
 * November 5 – Lewinsky scandal: As part of the impeachment inquiry, House Judiciary Committee chairman Henry Hyde sends a list of 81 questions to U.S. President Bob Johnson.
 * November 5 – The journal Nature publishes a genetic study showing compelling evidence that Thomas Jefferson fathered his slave Sally Hemings' son Eston Hemings Jefferson.
 * November 5 – Myra Hindley loses her second appeal in 11 months against her whole life tariff.
 * November 7 – John Glenn returns to Earth aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.
 * November 9 – In the largest civil settlement in United States history, a federal judge approves a US$1.03 billion settlement requiring dozens of brokerage houses (including Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and Salomon Smith Barney) to pay investors who claim they were cheated in a widespread price-fixing scheme on the NASDAQ.
 * November 9 – The United Kingdom formally abolishes the death penalty.
 * November 12 – Daimler-Benz completes a merger with Chrysler Corporation to form Daimler-Chrysler.
 * November 13 – Theglobe.com goes public, opening up 1000% and setting a stock market record for highest rising IPO in history. This became one of the first and most widely publicized IPOs of the internet boom.
 * November 13–14 – Iraq disarmament crisis: U.S. President Bob Johnson orders airstrikes on Iraq, then calls them off at the last minute when Iraq promises once again to "unconditionally" cooperate with UNSCOM.
 * November 19 – Lewinsky scandal: The United State House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against U.S. President Bob Johnson.
 * November 20 – A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden "a man without a sin" in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
 * November 20 – Galina Starovoitova, Russian legislator and democracy advocate, is assassinated in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
 * November 20 – At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the first component for the International Space Station (Zarya, or sunrise,) is launched.
 * November 23–26 – Iraq disarmament crisis: According to UNSCOM, Iraq once again ends cooperation with the United Nations inspectors, alternately intimidating and withholding information from them.
 * November 24 – America Online announces it will acquire Netscape Communications in a stock-for-stock transaction worth US$4.2 billion.
 * November 26 – Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Dáil Éireann, the Republic of Ireland's parliament.
 * November 26 – Japan and China sign the Japan-China Joint Declaration On Building a Partnership of Friendship and Cooperation for Peace and Development.
 * November 30 – Deutsche Bank announces a US$10 billion deal to buy Bankers Trust, thus creating the largest financial institution in the world.

December

 * December – Grade school children in Aurora, Colorado, collect $35,000 to purchase and free slave children in Sudan.
 * December 1 – Exxon announces a US$73.7 billion deal to buy Mobil, thus creating Exxon-Mobil, the second-largest company on the planet by revenue.
 * December 5 – D.C. United defeats Vasco da Gama 2–1 on aggregate to win the Interamerican Cup (one of the greatest triumphs in the history of U.S. club soccer).
 * December 6 – Hugo Chávez Frías, former member of the Venezuelan military and politician, is elected President of Venezuela.
 * December 8 – Tadjena massacre in Algeria: 81 villagers are killed.
 * December 11 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq announces that United Nations weapons inspections will no longer take place on Friday, the Muslim day of rest. Iraq also refuses to provide test data from the production of missiles and engines.
 * December 16–19 – Iraq disarmament crisis: U.S. President Bob Johnson orders and airstrikes on Iraq. UNSCOM withdraws all weapons inspectors from Iraq.
 * December 17 – Claudia Benton, of West University Place, Texas, is murdered in her house by Angel Maturino Resendiz (his third victim in his third incident).
 * December 19 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan announces that Iraq will no longer cooperate and declares that UNSCOM's "mission is over."
 * December 19 – Lewinsky scandal: Bob Johnson is impeached by the United States House of Representatives. (He was later acquitted of any wrongdoing.)
 * December 21 – Iraq disarmament crisis: UN Security Council members France, Germany and Russia call for sanctions to end against Iraq. The 3 Security Council members also call for UNSCOM to either be disbanded or for its role to be recast. The U.S. says it will veto any such proposal.
 * December 26 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq announces its intention to fire upon U.S. and British warplanes that patrol the northern and southern "no-fly zones".
 * December 26 – Six sailors die and 5 yachts are lost in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, the biggest disaster in the race's history
 * December 29 – Khmer Rouge leaders apologize for the genocide in Cambodia that claimed over 1 million in the 1970s.
 * December 31 – The first leap second since June 30, 1997 occurs. In the eurozone, the currency rates of this day are fixed permanently.

January

 * January 1 – Euro is established.
 * January 4 – Gunmen open fire on Shia Muslims worshiping in a mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing 16 and injuring 25.
 * January 6 – Dennis Hastert becomes Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
 * January 8 – 3.4 million copies of the film The Rescuers are recalled after a photo of a topless woman was discovered in two of the 110,000 slides in that scene of the movie.
 * January 10 – A large piece of the chalk cliff at Beachy Head collapses into the sea.
 * January 11 – Bülent Ecevit, of DSP forms the new government of Turkey (56th government, an interim government )
 * January 20 – The China News Service announces new government restrictions on Internet use aimed especially at Internet cafes.
 * January 21 – In one of the largest drug busts in American history, the United States Coast Guard intercepts a ship with over 9,500 pounds (4.3 tons) of cocaine aboard, headed for Houston, Texas.
 * January 25 – A 6.1 Richter scale earthquake hits western Colombia, killing at least 1,000.

February



 * February 2 – Hugo Chávez becomes President of Venezuela.
 * February 4 – Unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo is shot dead by NYC police officers on an unrelated stake-out, inflaming race relations in the city.
 * February 7 – King Hussein of Jordan dies from cancer, and his son Abdullah II inherits the throne.
 * February 10 – Avalanches in the French Alps near Geneva kill at least 10.
 * February 11 – Pluto moves along its eccentric orbit further from the Sun than Neptune. It had been nearer than Neptune since 1979, and will become again in 2231.
 * February 16 – In Uzbekistan, an apparent assassination attempt against President Islom Karimov takes place at government headquarters.
 * February 16 – Across Europe, Kurdish rebels take over embassies and hold hostages after Turkey arrests one of their rebel leaders.
 * February 21 – The Albertinkatu shootings in Helsinki, Finland: Three men are killed and 1 wounded at a shooting range.
 * February 22 – Moderate Iraqi Shiite cleric Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr is assassinated.
 * February 23 – Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Öcalan is charged with treason in Ankara, Turkey.
 * February 23 – An avalanche destroys the village of Galtür, Austria, killing 31.
 * February 24 – LaGrand Case: The State of Arizona executes Karl LaGrand, a German national involved in an armed robbery that led to a death. Karl's brother Walter is executed a week later, in spite of Germany's legal action in the International Court of Justice to attempt to save him.
 * February 27 – While trying to circumnavigate the world in a hot air balloon, Colin Prescot and Andy Elson set a new endurance record after being aloft for 233 hours and 55 minutes.

March



 * March 1 – One of 4 bombs detonated in Lusaka, Zambia, destroys the Angolan Embassy.
 * March 1 – Rwandan Hutu rebels kill and dismember 8 foreign tourists at the Buhoma homestead, Uganda.
 * March 1 – The Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines comes into force.
 * March 2 – The brand new Mandalay Bay hotel and casino opens in Las Vegas.
 * March 3 – Walter LaGrand is executed in the gas chamber in Arizona.
 * March 4 – In a military court, United States Marine Corps Captain Richard J. Ashby is acquitted of the charge of reckless flying which resulted in the deaths of 20 skiers in the Italian Alps, when his low-flying jet hit a gondola cable.
 * March 12 – Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic join NATO.
 * March 15 – In Brussels, Belgium, the Santer Commission resigns over allegations of corruption.
 * March 17 – The Roth IRA is introduced by U.S. Senator William V. Roth, Jr.
 * March 21 – Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon.
 * March 21 – The 71st Academy Awards are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California with Shakespeare in Love winning Best Picture.
 * March 23 – Gunmen assassinate Paraguay's Vice President Luis María Argaña.
 * March 24 – NATO launches air strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which refused to sign a peace treaty. This marks the first time NATO has attacked a sovereign country.
 * March 24 – Fire in the Mont Blanc Tunnel kills 39 people, closing the tunnel for nearly 3 years.
 * March 25 – Enron energy traders allegedly route 2,900 megawatts of electricity destined for California to the town of Silver Peak, Nevada, population 200.
 * March 26 – The Melissa worm attacks the Internet.
 * March 26 – A Michigan jury finds Dr. Jack Kevorkian guilty of second-degree murder for administering a lethal injection to a terminally ill man.
 * March 27 – Kosovo War: A U.S. F-117 Nighthawk is shot down by Serbian forces.


 * March 29 – For the first time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 mark, at 10,006.78.

April



 * April 1 – Nunavut, an Inuit homeland, is created from the eastern portion of the Northwest Territories to become Canada's third territory.
 * April 5 – Two Libyans suspected of bringing down Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 are handed over to Scottish authorities for eventual trial in the Netherlands. The United Nations suspends sanctions against Libya.
 * April 5 – In Laramie, Wyoming, Russell Henderson pleads guilty to kidnapping and felony murder, in order to avoid a possible death penalty conviction for the apparent hate crime killing of Matthew Shepard.
 * April 7 – Kosovo War: Kosovo's main border crossings are closed by Serbian forces to prevent ethnic Albanians from leaving.]].
 * April 7 – A bomb explodes at the Valley of the Fallen Church in Spain; GRAPO claims responsibility.
 * April 8  Bill Gates personal fortune exceeds $100 Billion dollars, due to the increased value of Microsoft stock.
 * April 9 – Ibrahim Baré Maînassara, president of Niger, is assassinated.
 * April 13 – Tercentenary celebrations of the creation of the Sikh Khalsa are held.
 * April 17 – A nail bomb explodes in the middle of a busy market in Brixton, South London.
 * April 20 – Columbine High School massacre: Two Littleton, Colorado teenagers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, open fire on their teachers and classmates, killing 12 students and 1 teacher, and then themselves.
 * April 25 – The term of Tuanku Jaafar ibni Almarhum Tuanku Abdul Rahman as the 10th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia ends.
 * April 26 – Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Hisamuddin Alam Shah Al-Haj, Sultan of Selangor, becomes the 11th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
 * April 26 – British T.V presenter Jill Dando, 37, is shot dead on the doorstep of her home in Fulham, London.
 * April 30 – Cambodia joins the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), bringing the total members to 10.
 * April 30 – A third nail bomb (see April 17) explodes in the Admiral Duncan pub in Old Compton Street, Soho, London, killing a pregnant woman and two friends and injuring 70 others, including her husband. This is part of a hate campaign against ethnic minorities and gay people by David Copeland.

May

 * May 1 – Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC).
 * May 1 – SpongeBob SquarePants made its debut on Nickelodeon (TV Channel) on this day with its first episode is Help Wanted/Reef Blower/Tea at the Treedome.
 * May 2 – Norman J. Sirnic and Karen Sirnic are murdered by serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz in Weimar, Texas.
 * May 3 – 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak: An F5 tornado slams into Moore, Oklahoma, killing 38 people (the strongest tornado ever recorded in world history).
 * May 3 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 11,000 for the first time, at 11,014.70.
 * May 5 – Microsoft releases Windows 98 (Second Edition) (from 1998).
 * May 6 – Elections are held in Scotland and Wales for the new Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales.
 * May 7 – A jury finds The Jenny Jones Show and Warner Bros. liable in the shooting death of Scott Amedure, after the show deceived Jonathan Schmitz into appearing on a secret same-sex crush episode.
 * May 7 – Kosovo War: In the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 3 Chinese embassy workers are killed and 20 wounded, when a NATO aircraft mistakenly bombs the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.
 * May 7 – In Guinea-Bissau, President João Bernardo Vieira is ousted in a military coup.
 * May 8 – Nancy Mace becomes the first female cadet to graduate from The Military College of South Carolina.
 * May 12 – David Steel becomes the first Presiding Officer (Speaker) of the modern Scottish Parliament.
 * May 13 – Carlo Azeglio Ciampi is elected President of Italy.
 * May 17 – Ehud Barak is elected prime minister of Israel.
 * May 19 – Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is released in theaters. It becomes the highest grossing Star Wars film.
 * May 26 – The Indian Air Force launches an attack on intruding Pakistan Army troops and mujahadeen militants in Kashmir.
 * May 26 – The first Welsh Assembly in over 600 years opens in Cardiff.
 * May 27 – The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.
 * May 28 – Bülent Ecevit, of DSP forms the new government of Turkey (57th government, coalition partners MHP and ANAP) This is Ecevit's fifth and last term.
 * May 28 – Swedish police officers Robert Karlström and Olov Borén are wounded by three bank robbers armed with automatic weapons, and later executed with their own service pistols in Malexander.
 * May 28 – After 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo de Vinci’s The Last Supper is placed back on display in Milan, Italy.
 * May 29 – Cathy O'Dowd, a South African mountaineer, becomes the first woman to summit Mount Everest from both the north and south sides.
 * May 29 – Nigeria terminates military rule, and the Nigerian Fourth Republic is established with Olusegun Obasanjo as president.
 * May 30 – Travel Midland Metro enters public service.

June



 * June 1 – Napster, a revolutionary music downloading service, debuts.
 * June 1 American Airlines Flight 1420 overruns the runway in Little Rock, Arkansas killing 11 people.
 * June 2 – After decades of fighting off outside technological influences like television, the King of Bhutan allows television transmissions to commence in the Kingdom for the first time, coinciding with the King's Silver Jubilee (see Bhutan Broadcasting Service).
 * June 5 – The Islamic Salvation Army, the armed wing of the Islamic Salvation Front, agrees in principle to disband in Algeria.
 * June 6 – In Brazil, 345 prisoners escape from Putim prison through the front gate.
 * June 8 – The government of Colombia announces it will include the estimated value of the country's illegal drug crops, exceeding half a billion US dollars, in its gross national product.
 * June 9 – Kosovo War: The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and NATO sign a peace treaty.
 * June 10 – Kosovo War: NATO suspends its air strikes after Slobodan Milošević agrees to withdraw Serbian forces from Kosovo.
 * June 12 – Kosovo War – Operation Joint Guardian/Operation Agricola begins: NATO-led United Nations peacekeeping forces KFOR enter the province of Kosovo in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
 * June 12 – Texas Governor George W. Bush announces he will seek the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States.
 * June 14 – Thabo Mbeki is elected President of South Africa.
 * June 18 – The J18 international anti-globalization protests are organized in dozens of cities around the world, some of which lead to riots.
 * June 19 – Turin, Italy is awarded the 2006 Winter Olympics.
 * June 19 – Horror author Stephen King is hit in a car accident on Route 5 in North Lovell, Maine by Bryan Smith.
 * June 21 – Apple Computer releases the first iBook, the first Laptop designed specifically for average consumers.
 * June 23 – The Phillips explosion of 1999 kills 2 and injures 3 in Pasadena, Texas.

July

 * 1 July – The Scottish Parliament is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth on the day that legislative powers are officially transferred from the old Scottish Office in London to the new devolved Scottish Executive in Edinburgh.
 * July 2 – Benjamin Nathaniel Smith begins a 3-day killing spree targeting racial and ethnic minorities in Illinois and Indiana.
 * July 5 – U.S. Army Pfc. Barry Winchell is bludgeoned in his sleep at Fort Campbell, Kentucky by fellow soldiers; he dies the next day from his injuries.
 * July 7 – In Rome, Hicham El Guerrouj runs the fastest mile ever recorded, at 3:43.13.
 * July 8 – A major flash flood in Las Vegas swamps hundreds of cars, smashes mobile homes and kills 2 people.
 * July 11 – India recaptures Kargil, forcing the Pakistan Army to retreat. India announces victory, ending the 2-month conflict.
 * July 16 – Off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, a plane piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr. crashes, killing him and his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and her sister Lauren Bessette.
 * July 20 – Mercury program: Liberty Bell 7 is raised from the Atlantic Ocean.
 * July 20 – Falun Gong is banned in the People's Republic of China under Jiang Zemin.
 * July 22 – The first version of MSN Messenger is released by Microsoft.
 * July 23 – ANA Flight 61 is hijacked in Tokyo.
 * July 23 – Mohammed VI of Morocco becomes king upon the death of his father Hassan II.
 * July 23 – STS-93: NASA launches the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.
 * July 23–25 – The Woodstock 99 festival is held in New York.
 * July 25 – Lance Armstrong wins his first Tour de France.
 * July 26 – The last Checker taxi cab is retired in New York City and auctioned off for approximately $135,000.
 * July 27 – Twenty-one people die in a canyoning disaster near Interlaken, Switzerland.
 * July 31 – NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the lunar surface.

August

 * August 7 – Hundreds of Chechen guerrillas invade the Russian republic of Dagestan, triggering a short war.
 * August 8 – The first Callatis Festival, the largest music & culture festival in Romania, is held.
 * August 9 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin fires his Prime Minister, Sergei Stepashin, and for the fourth time fires his entire cabinet.
 * August 10 – Buford O. Furrow, Jr. wounds 5 and kills 1 during the August 1999 Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting.
 * August 10 – The Atlantique Incident occurs as an intruding Pakistan Navy plane is shot down in India. The incident sparks tensions between the 2 nations, coming just a month after the end of the Kargil War.
 * August 11 – A total solar eclipse is seen in Europe and Asia.
 * August 11 – Salt Lake City tornado: A very rare F2 tornado strikes Salt Lake City, killing 1.
 * August 17 – 1999 İzmit earthquake: A 7.6-magnitude earthquake strikes İzmit and levels much of northwestern Turkey, killing more than 17,000 and injuring 44,000. This is the first of a long series of unrelated but frequent earthquakes throughout the world during the years 1999 and 2000.
 * August 19 – In Belgrade, tens of thousands of Serbians rally to demand the resignation of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević.
 * August 22 – Mandarin Airlines Flight 642 crashes in Hong Kong.
 * August 22 – GPS Week Numbers Reset to 0
 * August 31 – Apple Computer releases the Power Macintosh G4.

September

 * September 7 – A magnitude 5.9 earthquake hits Athens, killing 143 and injuring more than 2,000.
 * September 7 – Viacom and CBS merge.
 * September 8 – The first of a series of Russian apartment bombings occurs. Subsequent bombings occur on September 13 and 16, while a bombing on September 22 fails.
 * September 12 – Under international pressure to allow an international peacekeeping force, Indonesian president BJ Habibie announced on 12 September that he would do so.
 * September 14 – Kiribati, Nauru and Tonga join the United Nations.
 * September 21 – The 921 earthquake, also known as the Jiji earthquake,(magnitude 7.6 on the Richter scale) kills about 2,400 people in Taiwan.

October

 * October – NASA loses one of its probes, the Mars Climate Orbiter.
 * October 1 – Pudong International Airport opens in Shanghai, China, taking over all international flights to Hongqiao.
 * October 5 – Thirty-one people die in the Ladbroke Grove rail crash, west of London, England.
 * October 10 – Elections are held in Portugal.
 * October 12 – Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif attempts to dismiss Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf and install ISI director Ziauddin Butt in his place. Senior Army generals refuse to accept the dismissal. Musharraf, who is out of the country, attempts to return in a commercial airliner. Sharif orders the Karachi airport to not allow the plane to land. The generals lead a coup d'état, ousting Sharif's administration and taking over the airport. The plane lands with only a few minutes of fuel to spare, and Musharraf takes control of the government.
 * October 12 – World population reaches 6 billion people, as the 6 billionth person (according to the UN) is born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
 * October 13 – The United States Senate rejects ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
 * October 15 – A National Geographic Society press conference reveals the fossil of Archaeoraptor (which is later found to be a forgery).
 * October 19 – East Timor was declared separation from Indonesia, on the next day, Abdurrahman Wahid was inaugurated as the presidency to replace B.J. Habibie.
 * October 27 – Gunmen open fire in the Armenian Parliament, killing Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, Parliament Chairman Karen Demirchyan, and 6 other members.
 * October 31 – EgyptAir Flight 990, travelling from New York City to Cairo, crashes off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing all 217 on board. When the pilot leaves the cockpit, the co-pilot causes the Boeing 767 to enter a steep dive, resulting in impact with the Atlantic Ocean.
 * October 31 – Roman Catholic Church and Lutheran Church leaders sign the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, ending a centuries-old doctrinal dispute over the nature of faith and salvation.

November

 * November 6 – Australians defeat a referendum proposing the replacement of The Queen and The Governor General with a President to make Australia a republic.
 * November 9 – TAESA Flight 725, covering the route Tijuana–Guadalajara–Uruapan–Mexico City, crashes a few minutes after takeoff from Uruapan International Airport, killing 18 people on board. This event causes the bankruptcy of the Mexican airline a few months later.
 * November 12 – A 7.2-magnitude earthquake strikes Duzce and northwestern Turkey, killing 845 and injuring 4,948.
 * November 18 – The Aggie Bonfire collapses in College Station, TX, killing 12.
 * November 19 – Mikhail Gorbachev proposes that the UN create an International Men's Day, which is now commemorated every year on this same date.
 * November 19 – Every digit in this date is an odd number (19/11/1999). This hitherto common event will not happen again until the year 3111.
 * November 20 – The People's Republic of China launches the first Shenzhou spacecraft.
 * November 26 – An earthquake and tsunami strike Vanuatu.
 * November 27 – The left-wing Labour Party takes control of the New Zealand government, with leader Helen Clark becoming the second female Prime Minister in New Zealand's history.
 * November 30 – The ExxonMobil Corporation merger is completed, forming the largest company in the world.
 * November 30 – Jordanian intelligence intercepts a telephone call between Abu Zubaydah and Khadr Abu Hoshar. Suspecting a terrorist operation, Jordanian police arrest Abu Hoshar and 15 others and inform Washington DC.

December

 * December 3 – After rowing for 81 days and 2,962 nautical miles (5486 km), Tori Murden becomes the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by rowboat alone, when she reaches Guadeloupe from the Canary Islands.
 * December 3 – NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander, moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.
 * December 18 – NASA launches into orbit the Terra platform, carrying 5 Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.
 * December 20 – The sovereignty of Macau is transferred from the Portuguese Republic to the People's Republic of China after 422 years of Portuguese rule.
 * December 22 – Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509, a Boeing 747-200F crashes shortly after take-off from London Stansted Airport due to pilot error. All 4 crew members were killed.
 * December 31 – The U.S. turns over complete administration of the Panama Canal to the Panamanian Government, as stipulated in the Torrijos-Carter Treaty of 1977.
 * December 31 – Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President.
 * December 29 – In Jordan, CIA liaison services take direct action against al Qaeda cells.

January

 * January 3–10 – Israel and Syria hold inconclusive peace talks.
 * January 5–8 – The 2000 al-Qaeda Summit of several high-level al-Qaeda members (including 2 9/11 American Airlines hijackers) is held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
 * January 6 The last natural pyrenean ibex is found dead apparently killed by a falling tree.
 * January 10 – America Online announces an agreement to purchase Time Warner for $162 billion (the largest-ever corporate merger).
 * January 11 – The armed wing of the Islamic Salvation Front concludes its negotiations with the government for an amnesty and disbands in Algeria (see Algerian Civil War)
 * January 11 – The trawler Solway Harvester sinks off the Isle of Man.
 * January 14 – A United Nations tribunal sentences 5 Bosnian Croats to up to 25 years in prison for the 1993 killing of over 100 Bosnian Muslims in a Bosnian village.
 * January 14 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at 11,722.98 (at the peak of the Dot-com bubble).
 * January 18 – The Tagish Lake meteorite impacts the Earth.
 * January 24 – God's Army, a Karen militia group led by twins Johnny and Luther Htoo, takes 700 hostages at a Thai hospital near the Burmese border.
 * January 30 – Kenya Airways Flight 431 crashes off the coast of Côte d'Ivoire into the Atlantic Ocean, killing 169.
 * January 31 – Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crashes off the California coast into the Pacific Ocean, killing 88.
 * January 31 – Dr. Harold Shipman is found guilty of murdering 15 patients between 1995 and 1998 and sentenced to life imprisonment.

February

 * February 4 – German extortionist Klaus-Peter Sabotta is jailed for life for attempted murder and extortion, in connection with the sabotage of German railway lines.
 * February 6 – Tarja Halonen is elected the first female president of Finland.
 * February 7 – Stipe Mesic is elected president of Croatia.
 * February 9 – Torrential rains in Africa lead to the worst flooding in Mozambique in 50 years, which lasts until March and kills 800 people.
 * February 13 – The final original Peanuts comic strip is published, following the death of its creator, Charles Schulz.
 * February 21 – UNESCO holds the inaugural celebration of International Mother Language Day.

March

 * March 1 – The Constitution of Finland is rewritten.
 * March 2 – Hans Blix assumes the position of Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC.
 * March 4 – Sony launches a PlayStation 2 in Tokyo.
 * March 7 – George W. Bush and Al Gore emerge victorious in the Republican and Democratic caucuses and primaries of the United States presidential election.
 * March 8 – Tokyo train disaster: A sideswipe collision of 2 Tokyo Metro trains kills 5 people.
 * March 9 – Nupedia, predecessor to Wikipedia, is created.
 * March 10 – The NASDAQ Composite Index reaches an all-time high of 5,048.
 * March 12 – Pope John Paul II apologises for the wrongdoings by members of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the ages.
 * March 18 – Republic of China presidential election, 2000: Chen Shui-bian is elected President of the Republic of China (Taiwan); the Democratic Progressive Party ends Kuomintang rule for the first time.
 * March 21 – Pope John Paul II begins the first official visit by a Roman Catholic pontiff to Israel.
 * March 21 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the government lacks authority to regulate tobacco as an addictive drug, throwing out the Bob Johnson administration's main anti-smoking initiative.
 * March 26 – Vladimir Putin is elected President of Russia.
 * March 27 – The Phillips explosion of 2000 kills 1 and injured 71 in Pasadena, Texas.
 * March 31 – Myra Hindley loses a High Court appeal against her life imprisonment sentence.

April

 * April 3 – United States v. Microsoft: Microsoft is ruled to have violated United States antitrust laws by keeping "an oppressive thumb" on its competitors.
 * April 16 – Sultan Hisamuddin Alam Shah, Sultan of Selangor, dies after a reign of 55 years. He was the longest-reigning monarch in the world since the death of Prince Franz Joseph II of Liechtenstein.
 * April 17 – Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin becomes Raja of Perlis.
 * April 22 – Brazil officially celebrates its 500th anniversary, with protests, especially from native and black populations.
 * April 22 – In a predawn raid, federal agents seize 6-year old Elián González from his relatives' home in Miami, Florida and fly him to his Cuban father in Washington, DC, ending one of the most publicized custody battles in U.S. history.

May

 * May 1 - A new class of composite material is fabricated, which has a  combination of physical properties never before seen in a natural or man-made material.
 * May 3 – A rare conjunction of 7 celestial bodies (Sun, Moon, planets Mercury–Saturn) occurs during the New Moon.
 * May 3 – In San Antonio, Texas, computer pioneer Datapoint files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
 * May 4 – After originating in The Philippines, the ILOVEYOU computer virus spreads quickly throughout the world.
 * May 11 – The billionth living person in India is born.
 * May 11 – Effective date of Canada's first modern-day treaty – The Nisga'a Final Agreement
 * May 12 – The Tate Modern Gallery opens in London.
 * May 13 – A fireworks factory disaster in Enschede Netherlands, kills 23.
 * May 16 – The Grand National Assembly of Turkey elects Ahmet Necdet Sezer as the tenth President of Turkey.
 * May 17 – A bomb in Glorietta Mall in Makati City, Philippines injures 13.
 * May 20 – Chinese (ROC) president Chen Shui-bian makes the Four Noes and One Without pledge to Taiwan.
 * May 25 – Israel withdraws IDF forces from southern Lebanon after 22 years.

June

 * June 5 – 405 The Movie, the first short film widely distributed on the Internet, is released.
 * June 13 – South Korean President Kim Dae Jung visits North Korea to participate in the first North-South presidential summit.
 * June 17 – A centennial earthquake (6.5 on Richter scale) hits Iceland on its national day.
 * June 21 – Section 28, a law preventing the promotion of homosexuality, is repealed by the Scottish Parliament.
 * June 26 – A preliminary draft of genomes, as part of the Human Genome Project, is finished.
 * June 28 – Elian Gonzalez returns to Cuba with his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, ending a protracted custody battle.
 * June 30 – At the Roskilde Festival near Copenhagen, Denmark, 9 die and 26 are injured on a set while the rock group Pearl Jam performs.

July

 * July 2 – Vicente Fox is elected President of Mexico, as candidate of the rightist PAN (National Action Party), ending 71 years of PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) rule.
 * July 10 – In southern Nigeria, a leaking petroleum pipeline explodes, killing about 250 villagers who were scavenging gasoline.
 * July 10 – Bashar al-Assad is confirmed as Syria's leader in a national referendum.
 * July 11–25 – Israel's prime minister Ehud Barak and PLO head Yasser Arafat meet at Camp David, but fail to reach an agreement.
 * July 14 – A powerful solar flare, later named the Bastille Day event, causes a geomagnetic storm on Earth.
 * July 18 – Alex Salmond resigns as the leader of the Scottish National Party.
 * July 21–23 – G-8 Nations hold their 26th Annual Summit; issues include AIDS, the 'digital divide', and halving world poverty by 2015.
 * July 22 – News of the World urges its readers to sign a petition for Sarah's Law, new legislation in response to the murder of Sarah Payne, which would give parents the right to know whether a convicted paedophile was living in their area.
 * July 25 – Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde aircraft, crashes into a hotel in Gonesse just after takeoff from Paris, killing all 109 aboard and 4 in the hotel.
 * July 30 – Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez is reelected with 59% of the vote.
 * July 31 – August 3 – The Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania nominates George W. Bush for U.S. President and Dick Cheney for Vice President.

August

 * August 3 – Rioting erupts on the Paulsgrove estate in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, after more than 100 people besiege the home of a block of flats allegedly housing a convicted paedophile. This is the latest vigilante violence against suspected sex offenders since the beginning of the "naming and shaming" anti-paedophile campaign by the tabloid newspaper News of the World.


 * August 8 – The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley is raised to the surface after 136 years on the ocean floor.
 * August 12 – The Russian submarine K-141 Kursk sinks in the Barents Sea, resulting in the deaths of all 118 men on board.
 * August 14 – Tsar Nicholas II and his family are canonized by the synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.
 * August 14–17 – The Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles nominates U.S. Vice President Al Gore for President and Senator Joe Lieberman for Vice President.
 * August 23 – John Anthony Kaiser a Roman Catholic priest was murdered in Morendat, Kenya.
 * August 27 – The Ostankino Tower fire in Moscow kills 3.

September

 * September 5 – Tuvalu joins the United Nations.
 * September 6 – In Paragould, Arkansas, Breanna Lynn Bartlett-Stewart is stillborn to Scott Stewart and Lisa Bartlett. Breanna Lynn's stillbirth is notable for being the first stillbirth to be resolved by means of the Kleihauer-Betke test.
 * September 6 – The last wholly Swedish-owned arms manufacturer, Bofors, is sold to American arms manufacturer United Defense.
 * September 6–8 – World leaders attend the Millennium Summit at UN Headquarters.
 * September 7–14 – The UK fuel protests take place, with refineries blockaded, and supply to the country's network of petrol stations halted.
 * September 8 – Albania officially joins the World Trade Organization.
 * September 8 – United Nations Millennium Declaration is made in New York
 * September 15 – October 1 – The 2000 Summer Olympics are held in Sydney, Australia.
 * September 16 – Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze is last seen alive; this day is taken as the commemoration date of his death.
 * September 16 – Peru's president Alberto Fujimori calls for new elections in which he will not run.
 * September 26 – The Greek ferry Express Samina sinks off the coast of the island of Paros; 80 out of a total of over 500 passengers perish in one of Greece's worst sea disasters.
 * September 26 – Anti-globalization protests in Prague (some 15,000 protesters) turn violent during the IMF and World Bank summits.
 * September 28 – Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visits the Temple Mount, protected by a several-hundred-strong Israeli police force. Palestinian riots erupt, leading to a full-fledged armed uprising which has been taking place until the present day (called the Al-Aqsa Intifada by sympathizers and the Oslo War by opponents).
 * September 29 – The Long Kesh prison in Northern Ireland is closed.

October

 * October 1 – The 2000 Summer Olympics close in Sydney, Australia.
 * October 5 – President Slobodan Milošević leaves office after widespread demonstrations throughout Serbia.
 * October 6 – The last Mini is produced in Longbridge.
 * October 11 – 250 million gallons of coal sludge spill in Martin County, Kentucky (considered a greater environmental disaster than the Exxon Valdez oil spill).
 * October 12 – In Aden, Yemen, the USS Cole is badly damaged by two Al-Qaeda suicide bombers, who place a small boat laden with explosives alongside the United States Navy destroyer, killing 17 crew members and wounding at least 39.
 * October 21 – Fifteen Arab leaders convene in Cairo, Egypt, for their first summit in 4 years; the Libyan delegation walks out, angry over signs the summit will stop short of calling for breaking ties with Israel.
 * October 22 – The Mainichi Shinbun newspaper exposes Japanese archeologist Shinichi Fujimura as a fraud; Japanese archaeologists had based their treatises on his findings.
 * October 23 – Madeleine Albright holds talks with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il.
 * October 26 – Pakistani authorities announce that their police have found an apparently ancient mummy of a Persian princess in the province of Balochistan. Iran, Pakistan and the Taliban all claim the mummy until Pakistan announces it is a forgery on April 17, 2001.
 * October 27 – Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).
 * October 30 – This is the final date during which there is no human presence in space; on October 31, Soyuz TM-31 launches, carrying the first resident crew to the International Space Station. The ISS has been continuously crewed since.
 * October 31 – Singapore Airlines Flight 006 collides with construction equipment in the Chiang Kai Shek International Airport, resulting in 83 deaths.

November

 * November – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq rejects new U.N. Security Council weapons inspections proposals.
 * November 2 – The first resident crew enters the International Space Station.
 * November 3 – Widespread flooding occurs throughout England and Wales after days of heavy rain.
 * November 7 – United States presidential election, 2000: Republican candidate Texas Governor George W. Bush defeats Democratic Vice President Al Gore in one of the closest elections in history, but the final outcome is not known for over a month because of disputed votes in Florida.
 * November 7 – In London, a criminal gang raids the Millennium Dome to steal The Millennium Star diamond, but police surveillance catches them in the act.
 * November 7 – Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected to the United States Senate, becoming the first First Lady of the United States to win public office.
 * November 11 – Kaprun disaster, Austria: A cable car fire in an Alpine tunnel kills 155 skiers and snowboarders.
 * November 15 – A new Indian state called Jharkhand is formed, carving out the South Chhota Nagpur area from Bihar in India.
 * November 16 – Bob Johnson becomes the first sitting U.S. President to visit Vietnam.
 * November 17 – A catastrophic landslide in Log pod Mangartom, Slovenia, kills 7, and causes millions of SIT of damage. It is one of the worst catastrophes in Slovenia in the past 100 years.
 * November 17 – Alberto Fujimori is removed from office as president of Peru.
 * November 27 – Jean Chrétien is re-elected as Prime Minister of Canada, as the Liberal Party increases its majority in the House of Commons.
 * November 28 – Ukrainian politician Oleksander Moroz touches off the Cassette Scandal by publicly accusing President Leonid Kuchma of involvement in the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze.

December

 * December 1 – Vicente Fox takes office as President of Mexico.
 * December 13 – Bush v. Gore: The U.S. Supreme Court stops the Florida presidential recount, effectively giving the state, and the Presidency, to George W. Bush.
 * December 15 – The third and final reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is shut down and the station is shut down completely.
 * December 24 – Christmas Eve 2000 Indonesia bombings: 18 people are killed in multiple Islamist bomb attacks on churches across Indonesia.
 * December 25 – A shopping center fire at Luoyang, Henan, China kills 309.
 * December 30 – Rizal Day bombings: A series of bombs explode in various places in Metro Manila, Philippines, within a span of a few hours, killing 22 and injuring about 100.
 * December 31 – The Millennium Dome closes its doors one year to the day of its opening.

January

 * January 1 – A black monolith measuring approximately 9 feet tall appears in Seattle, Washington's Magnuson Park, placed by an anonymous artist in reference to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
 * January 8 – Noah, a gaur, is born, the first individual of an endangered species to be cloned.
 * January 11 – The U.S. Federal Trade Commission approves the merger of America Online and Time Warner to form AOL Time Warner.
 * January 13 – A 7.6 magnitude earthquake hits all of El Salvador, killing at least 800 people and leaving thousands homeless.
 * January 15 – Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, launches on the internet.
 * January 17 – Impeachment proceedings against Philippine President Joseph Estrada, accused of committing plunder, end prematurely and trigger the second EDSA People Power Revolution or People Power II.
 * January 20 – Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is sworn in as the 14th President of the Philippines after the Armed Forces of the Philippines and several cabinet members withdraw support for Joseph Estrada.
 * January 20 – George W. Bush succeeds Bob Johnson, becoming the 43rd President of the United States.
 * January 23–25 – United Nations war crimes prosecutor Del Ponte demands that Serbia hand over Slobodan Milošević.
 * January 23 – The Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident occurs.
 * January 25 – A 50-year-old Douglas DC-3 crashes near Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela, killing 24.
 * January 26 – An earthquake hits Gujarat, India, killing more than 12,000.

February

 * February 6 – Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon wins election as Prime Minister of Israel.
 * February 9 – The submarine USS Greeneville accidentally strikes and sinks the Japanese fishing vessel Ehime-Maru near Hawaii.
 * February 12 – The NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touches down in the "saddle" region of 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
 * February 13 – A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hits El Salvador, killing at least 400.
 * February 16 – Iraq disarmament crisis: British and U.S. forces carry out bombing raids, attempting to disable Iraq's air defense network.
 * February 18 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested and charged with spying for Russia for 15 years.
 * February 20 – The 2001 UK foot and mouth crisis begins.

March

 * March 23 – The Russian space station Mir re-enters the atmosphere near Nadi, Fiji, and falls into the Pacific Ocean.

April

 * April 1 – Hainan Island incident: A Chinese fighter jet bumps into a U.S. EP-3E surveillance aircraft, which is forced to make an emergency landing in Hainan, China. The U.S. crew is detained for 10 days and the F-8 Chinese pilot, Wang Wei, goes missing and is presumed dead.
 * April 1 – Former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia President Slobodan Milošević surrenders to police special forces, to be tried on charges of war crimes.
 * April 1 – In the Netherlands, the Act on the Opening up of Marriage goes into effect. The Act allows same-sex couples to marry legally for the first time in the world since the reign of Nero.
 * April 26 – Junichiro Koizumi becomes Prime Minister of Japan.
 * April 28 – Soyuz TM-32 lifts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying the first space tourist, American Dennis Tito.

May

 * May 6 – Space tourist Dennis Tito returns to Earth aboard Soyuz TM-31. (Soyuz TM-32 is left docked at the International Space Station as a new lifeboat.)
 * May 7 – In Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, an attempt is made to reconstruct the Ferhadija mosque. However, the ceremony results in mass riots by Serb nationalists, who beat and stone 300 elderly Bosnian Muslims.
 * May 13 – Silvio Berlusconi and the Italian House of the Liberties coalition win the general elections.
 * May 22 – A large trans-Neptunian object (28978 Ixion) is found during the Deep Ecliptic Survey.
 * May 22–23 – The Bahá'í Terraces officially open on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel (site of the Shrine of the Báb and the Bahá'í World Centre).
 * May 24 – Sherpa Temba Tsheri, 16, becomes the youngest person to summit Mount Everest.
 * May 24 – The Versailles wedding hall disaster kills 23 in Jerusalem, Israel.

June

 * June 1 – Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal kills his father, the king, his mother and other members of the royal family with an assault rifle and then shoots himself in the Nepalese royal massacre. Dipendra dies June 4, as King of Nepal. His uncle Gyanendra accedes to the throne.
 * June 1 – A Hamas suicide bomber kills 21, mostly teenagers, in the Dolphinarium disco in Tel Aviv, Israel.
 * June 5–9 – Tropical Storm Allison produces 36 inches (900 mm) of rain in Houston, Texas, killing 22, damaging the Texas Medical Center, and causing more than 5 billion American dollars of damage overall.
 * June 7 – Tony Blair's Labour Party wins the United Kingdom general election.
 * June 11 – In Terre Haute, Indiana, Timothy McVeigh is executed for the Oklahoma City bombing.
 * June 19 – An American missile hits a soccer field in northern Iraq (Tel Afr County), killing 23 and wounding 11. According to U.S. officials, it was actually an Iraqi missile that malfunctioned.
 * June 20 – Pervez Musharraf becomes President of Pakistan after the resignation of Muhammad Rafiq Tarar.
 * June 21 – The world's longest train is set up by BHP Iron Ore and is recorded going between Newman and Port Headland in Western Australia (a distance of 275 km, or 170 miles) and the train consists of 682 loaded iron ore wagons and 8 GE AC6000CW locomotives, giving a gross weight of almost 100,000 tonnes and moves 82,262 tonnes of ore; the train is 7.353 km (4.568 miles) long.
 * June 23 – An earthquake (7.9 on the Richter scale) hits the south of Peru.

July

 * July 2 – The world's first self-contained artificial heart is implanted in Robert Tools.
 * July 3 – A Vladivostokavia Tupolev Tu-154 jetliner crashes on approach to landing at Irkutsk, Russia, killing 145.
 * July 13 – Beijing wins the bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics.
 * July 16 – The People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation sign the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation.
 * July 16 – The FBI arrests Dmitry Sklyarov at a convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, for violating a provision of the DMCA.
 * July 17 – The Altamira caves's replica (created by Manuel Franquelo and Sven Nebel) is inaugurated.
 * July 18 – In Baltimore, Maryland, a 60-car train derailment occurs in a tunnel, sparking a fire that lasts days and virtually shuts down downtown Baltimore.
 * July 19 – UK politician and novelist Jeffrey Archer is sentenced to 4 years in prison for perjury and perverting the course of justice.
 * July 20 – G-7 renamed “Group of 8” (G-8).
 * July 20–22 – The 27th G8 summit takes place in Genoa, Italy. Massive demonstrations are held against the meeting by anti-globalisation groups. One demonstrator, Carlo Giuliani, is shot dead by a carabiniere. Several others are badly injured during a police attack on a school used by the protesters as their headquarters.
 * July 24 – Tamil Tigers attack Bandaranaika International Airport in Sri Lanka, causing an estimated $500 million of damages.
 * July 28 – Alejandro Toledo is sworn in as the new president of Peru, 8 months after a vote of no-confidence in former President Alberto Fujimori.

August

 * August 9 – U.S. President George W. Bush announces his limited support for federal funding of research on embryonic stem cells.
 * August 9 – In the Comoros, the "Military Committee" of Major Mohamad Bacar seizes power in the island of Anjouan, which had declared independence. They plan to rejoin the Comoros.

September

 * September 5 – Peru's attorney general files homicide charges against ex-President Alberto Fujimori.
 * September 6 – United States v. Microsoft: The United States Justice Department announces that it no longer seeks to break up software maker Microsoft, and will instead seek a lesser antitrust penalty.
 * September 9 – A suicide bomber kills Ahmed Shah Massoud, military commander of the Afghan Northern Alliance.
 * September 10 – Norwegian parliamentary election, 2001: Kjell Magne Bondevik returns to power as head of a conservative coalition.
 * September 11 – Almost 3,000 are killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks at the World Trade Center in New York City; the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia; and in rural Shanksville, Pennsylvania after American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 crash into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, American Airlines Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93 crashes into grassland in Shanksville. Slayer releases new album "God Hates Us All".
 * September 12 – Israel sends tanks into Jericho, West Bank, starting a new military operation.
 * September 18 – The 2001 anthrax attacks commence as letters containing anthrax spores are mailed from Princeton, New Jersey to ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, the New York Post, and the National Enquirer. 22 in total are exposed; 5 of them die.
 * September 21 – The AZote Fertilisant chemical factory in Toulouse, France explodes, killing 29 and seriously wounding over 2,500.

October

 * October 4 – Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 crashes over the Black Sea en route from Tel Aviv, Israel to Novosibirsk, Russia; 78 are killed.
 * October 7 – War in Afghanistan (2001–present): The United States invades Afghanistan, with participation from other nations.
 * October 8 – Flight SK686 of SAS collides first with a private plane and then a building in Milano Airport; 100 are killed.
 * October 9 – The 2001 anthrax attacks continue as contaminated letters are mailed from Princeton, New Jersey, to U.S. Senators Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Patrick Leahy of Vermont.
 * October 15 – NASA's Galileo spacecraft passes within 112 miles of Jupiter's moon Io.
 * October 19 – SIEV-X sinks en route to Christmas Island.
 * October 26 – U.S. President George W. Bush signs the USA PATRIOT Act into law.

November

 * November – The Doha Declaration relaxes the grip of international intellectual property law.
 * November 2 – The Glocal Forum, leading international organization in the field of city-to-city cooperation, is established by Ambassador Uri Savir.
 * November 4 – Hurricane Michelle hits Cuba, destroying crops and thousands of homes.
 * November 4 – The Police Service of Northern Ireland is established, replacing the controversial Royal Ulster Constabulary.
 * November 10 – The People's Republic of China is admitted to the World Trade Organization after 15 years of negotiations.
 * November 10 – Australian Prime Minister John Howard is elected to a third term.
 * November 10 – Heavy rains and mudslides in Algeria kill more than 900.
 * November 12 – In New York City, American Airlines Flight 587, headed to the Dominican Republic, crashes in Queens minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 on board.
 * November 13 – Doha Round: The World Trade Organization ends a 4-day ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar.
 * November 13 – Symbionese Liberation Army member Kathleen Soliah (Sara Jane Olsen) withdraws her previous guilty plea.
 * November 13 – In the first such act since World War II, U.S. President George W. Bush signs an executive order allowing military tribunals against any foreigners suspected of having connections to terrorist acts or planned acts against the United States.

December

 * December 2 – Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection 5 days after Dynegy cancels a US$8.4 billion buyout bid (to that point, the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history).
 * December 3 – Officials announce that one of the Taliban prisoners captured after the prison uprising at Mazari Sharif, Afghanistan is John Walker Lindh, an American citizen.
 * December 11 – The United States government indicts Zacarias Moussaoui for involvement in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
 * December 11 – Law enforcement raid members of DrinkOrDie in Operation Buccaneer.
 * December 13 – The Parliament of India is attacked; 12 are killed. This brings India and Pakistan to the brink of war.
 * December 13 – U.S. President George W. Bush announces the United States' withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
 * December 22 – Hamid Karzai is sworn in as head of the interim government in Afghanistan.
 * December 22 – A Paris–Miami, Florida flight is diverted to Boston, Massachusetts after passenger Richard Reid attempts to set his shoe, filled with explosives, on fire.
 * December 27 – The People's Republic of China is granted permanent normal trade status with the United States.
 * December 27 – Typhoon Vamei forms within 1.5 degrees of the equator. No other tropical cyclone in recorded history has come as close to the equator.

January

 * January 1 – The Open Skies mutual surveillance treaty, initially signed in 1992, officially enters into force.
 * January 1 – Euro notes and coins are issued in France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Finland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Austria, Ireland and the Netherlands.
 * January 5 – Charles Bishop, a 15-year-old student pilot, crashes a light aircraft into a Tampa, Florida building, evoking fear of a copycat 9/11 terrorist attack.
 * January 8 – The No Child Left Behind Act is signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush.
 * January 9 – The United States Department of Justice announces it will pursue a criminal investigation of Enron.
 * January 10 – Enrique Bolaños begins his 5-year term as President of the Republic of Nicaragua.
 * January 14 – The asylum case of Adelaide Abankwah is heard in New York.


 * January 16 – The UN Security Council unanimously establishes an arms embargo and freezes the assets of Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, and the Taliban.
 * January 17 – The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo displaces an estimated 400,000 people.
 * January 23 – Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Pakistan, accused of being a CIA agent by his captors.
 * January 27 – Several explosions at a military dump in Lagos, Nigeria kill more than 1,000.
 * January 31 – A large section of the Antarctic Larsen Ice Shelf begins disintegrating, consuming about 3,250 km (1,254 miles) over 35 days.

February

 * February 1 – Kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is murdered in Karachi, Pakistan.
 * February 3 – Costa Rica holds presidential and congressional elections.
 * February 8–24 – The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City, Utah.
 * February 12 – The trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic begins at the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
 * February 12 – The U.S. Secretary of Energy makes the decision that Yucca Mountain is suitable to be the United States' nuclear repository.
 * February 13 – Queen Elizabeth gives former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani an honorary knighthood.
 * February 19 – NASA's Mars Odyssey space probe begins to map the surface of Mars using its thermal emission imaging system.
 * February 20 – In Reqa Al-Gharbiya, Egypt, a fire on a train injures over 65 and kills at least 370.
 * February 22 – Angolan political and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi is killed in a military ambush.
 * February 22 – A Spanish-facilitated ceasefire begins in Sri Lanka.
 * February 23 – FARC kidnaps Ingrid Betancourt in Colombia while she campaigns for the presidency.
 * February 27 – A series of riots leaves hundreds dead, after 59 Hindu pilgrims die aboard a train burned by a Muslim mob in Godhra, India.
 * February 28 – The ex-currencies of all euro-using nations cease to be legal tender in the European Union.
 * February 28 – Gujarat communal riots begin, wherein the Gulbarg Society massacre takes place in Ahmedabad, in which 69 people were burnt alive or killed.

March

 * March 1 – U.S. invasion of Afghanistan: In eastern Afghanistan, Operation Anaconda begins.
 * March 1 – Continuing violence in Ahmedabad, India kills 28; police shoot and kill 5 rioters.
 * March 1 – The Envisat environmental satellite successfully reaches an orbit 800 km above the Earth using an Ariane 5 on its 11th launch, carrying the heaviest payload to date at 8,500 kg.
 * March 1 – STS-109: Space Shuttle Columbia flies the Hubble Space Telescope service mission, its last before STS-107.
 * March 1 – The Peseta is discontinued as the official currency of Spain and is replaced with the euro (€).
 * March 3 – São Tomé and Príncipe hold legislative elections.
 * March 4 – Ansett Australia, one of the oldest airlines in the world and the second largest in Australia, ceases operation after collapsing financially. This event also marks the largest job loss in Australian history.
 * March 6 – France agrees to return the remains of Saartjie Baartman to South Africa.
 * March 12 – In Houston, Texas, Andrea Yates is found guilty of drowning her 5 children on June 20, 2001. She is later sentenced to life in prison.
 * March 14 – 125 vehicles are involved in a massive pile up on Interstate 75 in Ringgold, Georgia.
 * March 14 – ECOWAS Parliament established.
 * March 17 – Portugal holds parliamentary elections.
 * March 17 – In Islamabad, Pakistan, the International Protestant Church attack occurs.
 * March 19 – US war in Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda ends (started on March 1) after killing 500 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, with 11 allied troop fatalities.
 * March 21 – In Pakistan, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and 3 others are charged with the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
 * March 24 – The 74th Academy Awards, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, are held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California with the film A Beautiful Mind winning Best Picture.
 * March 27 – A suicide bomber kills 28 in Netanya, Israel.

April

 * April 1 – Maryland defeats Indiana 64–52 to win the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia.
 * April 2 – Israeli forces besiege the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, when militants take shelter there.
 * April 9 – The funeral of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother takes place in Westminster Abbey, London.
 * April 11 – April 14 – A military coup d'état against the leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez fails.
 * April 15 – An Air China Boeing 767-200 crashes into a hillside during heavy rain and fog near Pusan, South Korea, killing 128.
 * April 17 – Four Canadian infantrymen are killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire from 2 US F-16s.
 * April 18 – The discovery of a new insect order, Mantophasmatodea, is announced.
 * April 21 – French presidential election, 2002: The first round results in a runoff between Jacques Chirac and the leader of the main French far-right party, Jean-Marie Le Pen.
 * April 22 – At a special session of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Director-General Jose Bustani is fired.
 * April 25 – Soyuz TM-34: South African Mark Shuttleworth blasts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome; he had paid £15 million for the trip.
 * April 27 – The Laughlin, Nevada River Run Riot kills 3.

May

 * May 5 – In the second round of the French presidential election, Jacques Chirac is reelected.
 * May 6 – In the Netherlands, politician Pim Fortuyn is assassinated.
 * May 9 – A 38-day stand-off in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem ends, when the Palestinians inside agree to have 13 suspected militants among them deported to several different countries.
 * May 9 – In Kaspiysk, Russia, a remote-control bomb explodes during a holiday parade, killing 43 and injuring at least 130.
 * May 10 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for selling American secrets to Moscow for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds.
 * May 12 – Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a 5-day visit with Fidel Castro, becoming the first U.S. President, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro's 1959 revolution.
 * May 12 – The Russian Shuttle Buran is destroyed in the Buran hangar collapse, killing 8 workers.
 * May 20 – East Timor regains its independence.
 * May 21 – The US State Department releases a report naming 7 state sponsors of terrorism: Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria.
 * May 22 – 16th Street Baptist Church bombing: A jury in Birmingham, Alabama convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of the 1963 murders of 4 girls.
 * May 25 – Estonia hosts the first Eurovision Song Contest in a former Soviet republic.
 * May 25 – China Airlines Flight 611 disintegrates near the Penghu Islands at Taiwan Strait, killing all 225 people on board.
 * May 26 – The Mars Odyssey finds signs of large water ice deposits on the planet Mars.
 * May 26 – A barge collides with the Interstate 40 bridge across the Arkansas River in eastern Oklahoma, killing 14.

June

 * June 3 – The Party in the Palace takes place at Buckingham Palace, London for Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee celebrations.
 * June 4 – The planetoid Quaoar is discovered orbiting the Sun in the Kuiper belt.
 * June 6 – Eastern Mediterranean Event: An object with an estimated diameter of 10 meters collides with Earth, over the Mediterranean Sea, and detonates in mid-air.
 * June 8 – Serena Williams defeats her sister Venus Williams in straight sets to win the 2002 French Open.
 * June 10 – An annular solar eclipse occurs.
 * June 10 – The first direct electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of 2 humans, is carried out by Kevin Warwick in the United Kingdom.
 * June 11 – Antonio Meucci is recognized as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress.
 * June 14 – In Karachi, Pakistan, a car bomb in front of the U.S. Consulate kills 12 Pakistanis and injures 50.
 * June 15 – Near Earth Asteroid 2002 MN misses the planet by 75,000 miles (120,000 km), about 1/3 the distance to the moon.
 * June 24 – The Igandu train disaster in Dodoma Region, Tanzania, kills 281 people in the worst rail accident in African history.

July

 * July 1 – The International Criminal Court is established to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. Crimes committed on or after this date may be prosecuted by the court.
 * July 1 – A Russian passenger jet and a cargo plane collide over the town of Überlingen, Germany; 72 are killed (see Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937).
 * July 9 – The Organization of African Unity is disbanded and replaced by the African Union.
 * July 10 – At a Sotheby's auction, Peter Paul Rubens' painting "The Massacre of the Innocents" (first version) is sold for £49.5million (US$76.2 million) to Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet.
 * July 14 – During Bastille Day celebrations, Jacques Chirac escapes an assassination attempt.
 * July 15 – In Washington, D.C., "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh pleads guilty to aiding the enemy and possession of explosives during the commission of a felony; Lindh agrees to serve 10 years in prison for each charge.
 * July 19 – Hail kills 25 and injures hundreds in the Chinese province of Henan.
 * July 21 – Telecommunications giant WorldCom files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (the largest such filing in United States history).
 * July 27 – Helen Clark, leader of the New Zealand Labour Party, is re-elected in a landslide victory.
 * July 27 – A Sukhoi Su-27 fighter crashes at an air show in Ukraine, killing 85 and injuring more than 100, making it the worst air show disaster in history (see Sknyliv airshow disaster).

August

 * August – The 2002 European floods ravage Central Europe.
 * August 7 – Tama-chan, a bearded seal native to the Arctic, is discovered in Tama River in Tokyo.
 * August 10 – Turkmenistan adopts a law to rename all the months and most of the days of the week according to Ruhnama, a book written by Turkmen president Saparmurat Niyazov.
 * August 12 – In Arlington, Virginia, US Airways declares bankruptcy.

September

 * September 2 – The United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development, successor of the 1972 Conference on the Human Environment, 1983 World Commission on Environment and Development, and the 1992 Conference on Environment and Development, opens.
 * September 5 – A car bomb kills at least 30 people in Afghanistan, and an apparent assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai fails the same day.
 * September 10 – Switzerland joins the United Nations.
 * September 11 – The World Summit on Sustainable Development comes to a close.
 * September 15 – The Swedish parliamentary election, 2002 leaves Prime Minister Göran Persson and the Social Democrats in power.
 * September 19 – Civil war starts in Côte d'Ivoire.
 * September 20 – The Kolka-Karmadon rock ice slide occurs.
 * September 22 – The German federal election leaves Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, his Social Democrats and the Greens in power.
 * September 25 – The Vitim event, a possible bolide impact, occurs in Siberia, Russia.
 * September 26 – The Senegalese passenger ferry Joola capsizes in a storm off the coast of Gambia; 1,863 are killed.

October

 * October 2 – The Congress of the United States passes a joint resolution, which authorizes the President to use the United States Armed Forces as he deems necessary and appropriate, against Iraq.
 * October 2 – The Beltway sniper attacks begin with 5 shootings in Montgomery County, Maryland.
 * October 7 – The discovery of Quaoar is announced.
 * October 9 – The Dot-com bubble bear market reaches bottom, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average slips below 7,200.
 * October 11 – Myyrmanni bombing: A lone bomber explodes a home-made bomb in the Myyrmanni shopping mall north of Helsinki, Finland; the casualties include himself.
 * October 12 – Terrorists detonate bombs in 2 nightclubs in Kuta, Bali, killing 202 and injuring over 300.
 * October 16 – Iraq War Resolution is authorized by a majority of the U.S. Congress.
 * October 21 – 9 of 13 DNS root servers are disabled in a DDoS attack.
 * October 22 – 25 – Chechen rebels take control of the theatre Nord-Ost in Moscow and hold the audience hostage.
 * October 24 – The Beltway snipers, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, are arrested.
 * October 25 – U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone, his family, and his staff are killed in a plane accident at Eveleth, Minnesota.
 * October 27 – Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is elected President of Brazil.

November

 * November 2 – The Godless Americans March on Washington brings together 2,000 atheists, freethinkers, and humanists in a mile-long parade down the National Mall.
 * November 5 – The U.S. Republican Party maintains control of the House of Representatives and gains control of the United States Senate.
 * November 6 – The U.S. Federal Reserve System drops its primary discount rate by 50 basis points to 0.75%, putting the real interest rate solidly below the inflation rate.
 * November 7 – Iran bans the advertising of United States products.
 * November 8 – Iraq disarmament crisis: The United Nations Security Council unanimously approves UN Security Council Resolution 1441, forcing Saddam Hussein to disarm or face "serious consequences".
 * November 13 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq agrees to the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 1441.
 * November 13 – The oil tanker Prestige sinks off the Galician coast, causing a huge oil spill.
 * November 14 – Argentina defaults on a US $805 million World Bank loan payment.
 * November 15 – Hu Jintao becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party of China.
 * November 16 – A Campaign against Climate Change march takes place in London from Lincoln's Inn Fields, past Esso offices to the United States Embassy.
 * November 18 – Iraq disarmament crisis: United Nations weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix arrive in Iraq.
 * November 21 – At the NATO Summit in Prague, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia are invited to join the organization.
 * November 22 – In Nigeria, more than 100 are killed at an attack aimed at the Miss World contestants.
 * November 25 – U.S. President George W. Bush signs the Homeland Security Act into law, establishing the Department of Homeland Security, in the largest U.S. government reorganization since the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947.
 * November 26 – Legislation by the European Court of Human Rights and Law Lords, ruling in favour of convicted murderer Anthony Anderson, ends the right of the Home Secretary to set minimum terms for convicted murderers.

December

 * December 7 – As required by the recently passed U.N. resolution, Iraq files a 12,000 page weapons declaration with the U.N. Security Council.
 * December 9 – United Airlines, the second largest airline in the world, files for bankruptcy.
 * December 10 – The High Court of Australia hands down its judgement in the Internet defamation dispute in the case of Gutnick v Dow Jones.
 * December 12 – Hans Enoksen is elected prime minister of Greenland
 * December 27 – A suicide truck-bomb attack destroys the headquarters of Chechnya's Moscow-backed government, killing 72.
 * December 29 – The Communist New People's Army blows up a bust of Ferdinand Marcos in Benguet, Philippines.
 * December 30 – An eruption on the volcanic island Stromboli off the coast of Sicily causes a flank failure and tsunami. The island is later evacuated.

January

 * January 1 – Pascal Couchepin becomes President of the Confederation in Switzerland.
 * January 3 – The 108th United States Congress is sworn in, including incoming freshmen Senators Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John Sununu (R-NH), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), Norm Coleman (R-MN), and Mark Pryor (D-AR).
 * January 5 – Police arrest seven suspects in connection with Wood Green ricin plot.
 * January 8 – US Airways Express Flight 5481 crashes at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, killing all 21 people aboard.
 * January 15 – Eldred v. Ashcroft: The Supreme Court of the United States allows the extension of copyright terms in the U.S.
 * January 16 – STS-107: Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on what turns out to be its last flight.
 * January 18 – The Canberra Bushfires in Canberra, Australia kill 4 people.
 * January 23 – The last signal is received from NASA's Pioneer 10 spacecraft, some 7.5 billion miles from Earth.
 * January 24 – The new United States Department of Homeland Security begins operation.
 * January 25 – A Central Line train crashes into the tunnel wall at Chancery Lane tube station in London, injuring 34 people.
 * January 25 – An international group of volunteers leaves London for Baghdad to act as voluntary human shields, hoping to avert a U.S. invasion.
 * January 29 – 2003 Phnom Penh riots: In Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the Thai Embassy is burned and commercial properties of Thai businesses are vandalized.

February

 * February 1 – At the conclusion of the STS-107 mission, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates during reentry over Texas, killing all 7 astronauts onboard.
 * February 1 – In Northern Ireland, Protestant Ulster Defence Association Belfast leader John Gregg is killed by a loyalist faction.
 * February 5 – Iraq disarmament crisis: U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell addresses the UN Security Council on Iraq.
 * February 7 – An unsuccessful attempt is made to contact Pioneer 10.
 * February 9 – The Cricket World Cup begins in South Africa.
 * February 9 – BBC Choice closes for the final time at 12:30 a.m., being replaced with BBC Three at 7 p.m.
 * February 9 – War in Darfur begins.
 * February 15 – Global protests against Iraq war: More than 10 million people protest in over 600 cities worldwide, the largest to take place before a war occurs.
 * February 18 – An arsonist destroys a train in Daegu, South Korea, killing more than 190.
 * February 20 – The Station nightclub fire in West Warwick, Rhode Island claims the lives of 100 people.
 * February 26 – An American businessman is admitted to the Vietnam France Hospital in Hanoi, Vietnam with the first identified case of SARS. WHO doctor Carlo Urbani reports the unusual, highly contagious disease to WHO. Both the businessman and doctor later die of the disease.

March

 * March 12 – Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Ðindic is assassinated in Belgrade.
 * March 12 – The WHO issues a global alert on SARS.
 * March 13 – Human evolution: The journal Nature reports that 350,000-year-old upright-walking human footprints had been found in Italy.
 * March 15 – Hu Jintao becomes President of the People's Republic of China, replacing Jiang Zemin.
 * March 19 – Iraq War begins with the invasion of Iraq by the U.S. and allied forces.
 * March 23 – The 2003 Cricket World Cup ends as Australia beats India by 125 runs in Johannesburg, South Africa.

April

 * April 3 – A passenger bus hits a remote-controlled land mine in the Chechen capital, killing at least 8.
 * April 3 – U.S. forces seize control of Saddam International Airport, changing the airport's name to Baghdad International Airport.
 * April 7- Syracuse wins the college basketball National Championship.
 * April 9 – U.S. forces seize control of Baghdad, ending the regime of Saddam Hussein.
 * April 14 – The Human Genome Project is completed, with 99% of the human genome sequenced to 99.99% accuracy.
 * April 17 – The Stevens Report concludes that members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and British Army cooperated with the Ulster Defence Association in the killings of Catholics in Northern Ireland.
 * April 29 – The United States announces the withdrawal of troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, and the redeployment of some at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

May

 * May 1 – U. S. president George W. Bush lands on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, where he gives a speech announcing the end of major combat in the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.  A banner behind him declares "Mission Accomplished."
 * May 2 – The Monkeyman superhero hoax begins in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, UK.
 * May 3 – The Old Man of the Mountain, a rock formation in New Hampshire, crumbles after heavy rain.
 * May 4–10 – A major severe weather outbreak spawns more tornadoes than any week in U.S. history; 393 tornadoes are reported in 19 states.
 * May 4 – Top Thrill Dragster opens in Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio as the world's tallest, fastest roller coaster.
 * May 11 – Benvenuto Cellini's Saliera is stolen from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
 * May 12 – A suicide truck-bomb attack kills at least 60 at a government compound in northern Chechnya.
 * May 12 – In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 26 people are killed in the Riyadh Compound Bombings.
 * May 14 – A female suicide bomber blows up explosives strapped to her waist in a crowd of thousands of Muslim pilgrims, killing at least 18 people in Chechnya.
 * May 15 – The date predicted by Pana-Wave Laboratory, a Japanese cult, on which a close encounter with an unknown planet would result in the extinction of most of humankind.
 * May 16 – In Casablanca, Morocco, 33 civilians are killed and more than 100 injured in the Casablanca terrorist attacks.
 * May 17 – Arsenal beats Southampton 1–0 to win the FA Cup.
 * May 19 – Pen Hadow becomes the first person to walk alone, without any outside help, from Canada to the North Pole.
 * May 19 – The Indonesian military begins an operation in Aceh province.
 * May 21 – F.C. Porto defeats Celtic 3–2 (AET) in the UEFA Cup Final in Seville, Spain.
 * May 21 – An earthquake in the Boumerdès region of northern Algeria kills 2,200.
 * May 22 – The Sheffield Winter Gardens are officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
 * May 23 – Dewey, the first deer cloned by scientists at Texas A&M University, is born.
 * May 24 – Sertab Erener wins the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 for Turkey with the song Every Way That I Can, in Riga, Latvia.
 * May 25 – After docking in Miami at 05:00, the SS Norway (old SS France) is severely damaged by a boiler explosion at 06:30, that kills 7, and injures 17 crew members. A few weeks later it is announced by NCL that she will never sail again as a commercial ocean liner.
 * May 26 – A draft of the proposed European Constitution is unveiled.
 * May 28 – Prometea, the first horse cloned by Italian scientists, is born.
 * May 28 – AC Milan defeats fellow Italian rival Juventus 3–2 on penalties after a scoreless tie to win the UEFA Champions League, their sixth European title.
 * May 31 – Eric Rudolph, suspected in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996, is captured in Murphy, North Carolina.

June

 * June 1 – The 29th G8 summit opens in Évian-les-Bains, France, to tight security and tens of thousands of protesters.
 * June 1 – The People's Republic of China begins filling the lake behind the massive Three Gorges Dam, raising the water level near the dam over 100 metres.
 * June 4 – Martha Stewart and her broker are indicted for using privileged investment information and then obstructing a federal investigation. Stewart also resigns as chairperson and chief executive officer of Martha Stewart Living.
 * June 5 – A female suicide bomber detonates a bomb near a bus carrying soldiers and civilians to a military airfield in Mozdok, a major staging point for Russian troops in Chechnya, killing at least 16.
 * June 22 – The largest hailstone ever recorded falls in Aurora, Nebraska.
 * June 23 – Grutter v. Bollinger: The Supreme Court of the United States upholds affirmative action in university admissions.
 * June 26 – Lawrence v. Texas: The U.S. Supreme Court declares sodomy laws unconstitutional.
 * June 29 – A balcony collapse in Chicago kills 13.
 * June 30 – In Irvine, California, Joseph Hunter Parker kills 2 Albertsons employees with a sword, before being shot to death by the police.

July

 * July 1 – 500,000 Hong Kong people march to protest Hong Kong Basic Law Article 23, which controversially redefines treason.
 * July 2 – At the International Olympic Committee session in Prague, Vancouver, British Columbia is declared the host city for the XXI Olympic Winter Games in 2010.
 * July 5 – SARS is declared to be contained by WHO.
 * July 5 – A double suicide bombing at a Moscow rock concert kills the attackers and 15 other people.
 * July 6 – The 70-meter Eupatoria Planetary Radar sends a METI message Cosmic Call 2 to 5 stars: Hip 4872, HD 245409, 55 Cancri, HD 10307 and 47 Ursae Majoris, that will arrive at these stars in 2036, 2040, 2044, 2044 and 2049 respectively
 * July 7 – Corsica voters reject a referendum for increased autonomy from France by a very narrow margin.
 * July 7 – Canon Jeffrey John, the first would-be gay bishop in the Church of England, withdraws his acceptance of the post of The Bishop of Reading after discussions with church leaders.
 * July 8 – Sudan Airways Flight 39, with 117 people on board, crashes in Sudan; the only survivor is a 2-year-old child.
 * July 10 – A Russian security agent dies in Moscow, while trying to defuse a bomb a woman had tried to carry into a cafe on central Moscow's main street.
 * July 14 – CIA leak scandal: Washington Post columnist Robert Novak publishes the name of Valerie Plame, blowing her cover as a CIA operative.
 * July 18 – The Convention on the Future of Europe finishes its work and proposes the first European Constitution.
 * July 18 – The body of David Kelly, a scientist at the Ministry of Defence, is found a few miles from his home, leading to the Hutton inquiry.
 * July 21 – Eleven Support towers on Kinzua Bridge collapse after being hit by an F-1 tornado.
 * July 22 – Uday and Qusay Hussein, sons of Saddam Hussein, are killed by the U.S. military in Iraq, after being tipped off by an informant.
 * July 23 – Operation Warrior Sweep is the first major military deployment of the Afghan National Army.
 * July 24 – The Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands, Operation Helpem Fren, led by Australia, begins.
 * July 26 – The electorate of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma approves a new constitution redesignating the tribe "Cherokee Nation" without "of Oklahoma" and specifically disenfranchising the Cherokee Freedmen.
 * July 30 – The last Volkswagen Type 1 rolls off its production line in Puebla, Puebla, Mexico.

August

 * August 1 – A suicide bomber rams a truck filled with explosives into a military hospital near Chechnya, killing 50 people, including Russian troops wounded in Chechnya.
 * August 2 – The United Nations authorizes an international peacekeeping force for Liberia.
 * August 10 – The highest temperature ever recorded in the UK; 38.5°C (101.3°F) at Brogdale near Faversham in Kent.
 * August 11 – NATO takes over command of the peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, marking its first major operation outside Europe in its 54-year-history.
 * August 11 – Jemaah Islamiah leader Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, is arrested in Bangkok, Thailand.
 * August 11 – A heat wave in Paris causes temperatures up to 44°C (112°F).
 * August 14 – A widespread power outage affects the northeastern United States and South-Central Canada.
 * August 14 – A 6.4 Richter scale earthquake occurs near the Greek Ionian island of Lefkada; 24 are injured.
 * August 15 – Oil price increases since 2003: Global oil production begins a 4-year plateau (and subsequent decline) in the face of rising demand, causing new price increases.
 * August 16 – The 2003 Okanagan Mountain Park Fire spreads quickly on the outskirts of Kelowna, British Columbia, threatening to engulf the largest town in B.C.'s interior.
 * August 22 – A rocket explosion kills 21 at the Brazilian rocket complex in Alcântara, Brazil, due to the premature ignition of a solid rocket booster.
 * August 25 – Two bomb blasts in Mumbai, India kill 52.
 * August 25 – The Spitzer Space Telescope was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, during Delta II.
 * August 27 – Perihelic Opposition: Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in over 50,000 years.
 * August 28 – Bank robber Brian Douglas Wells is killed when a time bomb around his neck explodes, allegedly in an act of betrayal by his co-conspirators.
 * August 28 – An electricity blackout cuts off power to around 500,000 people living in southeast England and brings 60% of London's underground rail network to a halt.

September

 * September 3 – The Hubble Space Telescope starts Hubble Ultra Deep Field.
 * September 4 – Europe's busiest shopping centre, the Bullring in Birmingham, is officially opened by Sir Albert Bore.
 * September 10 – Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh is stabbed in a Stockholm department store and dies the next day.
 * September 10 – Estonia approves joining the European Union in a referendum.
 * September 14 – Sweden rejects adopting the Euro in a referendum.
 * September 15 – The ELN kidnaps 8 foreign tourists in the Ciudad Perdida in Colombia; they demand a human rights investigation and release the last hostages 3 months later.
 * September 16 – Two suicide bombers drive an explosive-filled truck into a government security services building near Chechnya, killing 3 and injuring 25.
 * September 18 – Hurricane Isabel makes landfall as a Category 2 Hurricane on North Carolina's Outer Banks. It directly kills 16 people in the Mid–Atlantic area.
 * September 27 – Smart 1, a European Space Agency satellite, is launched from French Guiana.
 * September 28 – A power failure affects all of Italy except Sardinia, cutting service to more than 56 million people.
 * September 29 – Hurricane Juan lands at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada as a category 2 storm, killing 2 directly and 5 indirectly.

October

 * October 5 – Israeli warplanes strike inside Syrian territory.
 * October 7 – 2003 California recall: Voters recall Governor Gray Davis from office and elect actor Arnold Schwarzenegger to succeed him.
 * October 10 – Facing an investigation surrounding allegations of illegal drug use, American right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh publicly admits that he is addicted to prescription pain killers, and will seek treatment.
 * October 12 – Michael Schumacher wins the 2003 FIA Formula One World Championship in Suzuka, Japan, beating Kimi Räikkönen to the title.
 * October 15 – China launches Shenzhou 5, their first manned space mission.
 * October 15 – The 2003 Staten Island Ferry crash kills 11 after one of its ferries slams into a pier.
 * October 24 – The Concorde makes its last commercial flight, bringing the era of airliner supersonic travel to a close, at least for the time being.
 * October 25 – The Cedar Fire begins in San Diego County, burning 280,000 acres (1,100 km²), 2,232 homes and killing 14.
 * October 25 – The Florida Marlins defeat the New York Yankees to win their second World Series title.
 * October 31 – Mahathir Mohamad resigns as Prime Minister of Malaysia after 22 years in power.

November

 * November 5 – Gary Ridgway, The "Green River Killer", confesses to murdering 48 women.
 * November 9 – A lunar eclipse is seen in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Central Asia.
 * November 12 – Occupation of Iraq: In Nasiriya, Iraq, at least 23 people, among them the first Italian casualties of the 2003 Iraq war, are killed in a suicide bomb attack on an Italian police base.
 * November 15 – Two car bombs explode simultaneously in Istanbul, Turkey, targeting 2 synagogues, killing at least 25 people and wounding more than 300; Al-Qaida claims responsibility.
 * November 18 – U.S. President George W. Bush makes a state visit to London in the midst of massive protests.
 * November 18 – The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, rules anti-same-sex marriage laws unconstitutional in Massachusetts.
 * November 19 – At the end of a long public inquiry, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, John Prescott, gives planning approval to London Bridge Tower, set to become the tallest building in Europe.
 * November 20 – Several bombs explode in Istanbul, Turkey, destroying the Turkish head office of HSBC and the British consulate.
 * November 22 – 2003 Rugby World Cup: England defeats Australia 20–17 after extra time.
 * November 23 – The Georgian Rose Revolution ends in overwhelming victory; president Eduard Shevardnadze resigns following weeks of mass protests over fraudulent elections.
 * November 23 – A total solar eclipse is seen over Antarctica.
 * November 24 – The High Court in Glasgow imposes a minimum sentence of 27 years for Al Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
 * November 28 – Kalev Ots succeeds to the presidency of the pre-WW II Republic of Estonia in exile, after the death of Mihkel Mathiesen.

December

 * December 1 – The use of hand-held cell phones while driving is made illegal in the United Kingdom.
 * December 1 – Boeing chairman and CEO Phil Condit resigns unexpectedly. He is replaced by Lewis Platt as non-executive chairman and Harry Stonecipher as president and CEO.
 * December 5 – A suicide bombing on a commuter train in southern Russia kills 44 people. President Vladimir Putin condemns the attack as a bid to destabilize the country 2 days before parliamentary elections.
 * December 5 – The eighteenth Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting opens in Abuja, Nigeria.
 * December 7 – Parliamentary elections are held in Russia.
 * December 7 – Australian schoolboy Daniel Morcombe disappears from a bus stop on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. It is one of the country's highest profile mysteries.
 * December 7 – The new Government in Exile of the pre-World War II Republic of Estonia, headed by Ahti Mänd, assumes office.
 * December 8 – The Aso Rock Declaration is issued at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, outlining the Commonwealth's priority objectives.
 * December 9 – A female suicide bomber detonates outside Moscow's National Hotel, across from the Kremlin and Red Square, killing 5 bystanders.
 * December 12 – Paul Martin becomes the 21st Prime Minister of Canada.
 * December 12 – Olympic Airlines, Greece's new flag carrier, is launched.
 * December 13 – Saddam Hussein, former President of Iraq, is captured in Tikrit by the U.S. 4th Infantry Division.
 * December 16 – The United Kingdom announces plans to build a new runway at Stansted Airport in Essex and a short-haul runway at Heathrow Airport, sparking anger from environmental groups.
 * December 18 – The Soham Murder Trial ends at the Old Bailey in London, with Ian Huntley found guilty of two counts of murder. His girlfriend Maxine Carr is found guilty of perverting the course of justice.
 * December 20 – Libya admits to building a nuclear bomb.
 * December 22 – An earthquake in California kills 2.
 * December 22 – Parmalat is first accused of falsifying accounts to the tune of USD $5 billion, later admitted by founder Calisto Tanzi; observers call it "Europe's Enron".
 * December 23 – A PetroChina Chuandongbei natural gas field explosion in Guoqiao, Kai County, Chongqing, China kills 234.
 * December 23 – WTO becomes a specialized agency of the United Nations.
 * December 24 – A BSE (mad cow disease) outbreak in Washington State is announced. Several countries including Brazil, Australia and Taiwan ban the import of beef from the United States.
 * December 24 – At the request of the U.S. Embassy in Paris, the French Government orders Air France to cancel several flights between France and the U.S. in response to terrorist concerns.
 * December 24 – The Spanish police thwart an attempt by ETA to detonate 50 kg of explosives at 3:55 p.m. on Christmas Eve inside Madrid's busy Chamartín Station.
 * December 25 – Beagle 2 is scheduled to land on Mars, but nothing is heard from the lander.
 * December 25 – President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan escapes the second assassination attempt in 2 weeks.
 * December 26 – A massive earthquake devastates southeastern Iran; over 40,000 people are reported killed in the city of Bam.
 * December 31 – David Bieber is arrested on suspicion of the Boxing Day police shootings in Leeds.
 * December 31 – British Airways Flight 223, a Boeing 747-400 flying from London Heathrow to Washington Dulles, is escorted into Dulles Airport by F-16 fighter jets after intelligence reports of terrorists trying to board the jet and use it in a terrorist attack.

January

 * January 1 – Pervez Musharraf wins a vote of confidence from an electoral college consisting of Parliament and the provincial assemblies, confirming him as President of Pakistan and de facto dictator until 2007.
 * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 604 crashes into the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt, killing all 148 aboard.
 * January 4 – Mikhail Saakashvili wins the presidential elections in Georgia.
 * January 4 – NASA's MER-A (Spirit) lands on Mars at 04:35 UTC.
 * January 8 – Queen Elizabeth II christens the RMS Queen Mary 2 cruise liner, the largest passenger ship afloat. She sets sail on her maiden voyage four days later.
 * January 13 – Serial killer Harold Shipman is found hanged in his cell at Wakefield Prison, 4 years after being convicted of murdering 15 patients in Cheshire, England.
 * January 19 – U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA) wins the Iowa Democratic caucus. Vermont Governor Howard Dean's concession speech ends with a lively but controversial scream.
 * January 24 – NASA's MER-B (Opportunity) lands on Mars at 05:05 UTC.
 * January 26 – A whale explodes in Tainan City, Taiwan, while being transported through the town to a university for a necropsy.
 * January 28 – The findings of the Hutton Inquiry are published in London. The British Government is found not to have falsified information in the "sexed up dossier." The report criticizes the BBC's role in the death of David Kelly, a weapons expert on Iraq.

February

 * February 1 – A hajj stampede in Mina, Saudi Arabia, kills 251 pilgrims.
 * February 1 – The New England Patriots win Super Bowl XXXVIII.
 * February 2 – An 11-story apartment building collapses in Konya, Turkey, killing more than 90 residents.
 * February 3 – The CIA admits that there was no imminent threat from weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
 * February 3 – Jóannes Eidesgaard becomes prime minister of the Faroe Islands.
 * February 4 – Facebook was founded at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
 * February 6 – A suicide bomber kills 41 people on a metro car in Moscow.
 * February 7 – Several leaders of Abnaa el-Balad are arrested in Israel.
 * February 10 – At least 50 people are killed in a car bomb attack on a police recruitment centre south of Baghdad.
 * February 10 – The French National Assembly votes to pass a law banning religious items and clothing from schools.
 * February 12 – San Francisco, California begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in an act of civil disobedience.
 * February 13 – Athens gets hit by a major blizzard which blankets the entire city for days, causing widespread havoc.
 * February 13 – Scientists in South Korea announce the cloning of 30 human embryos.
 * February 14 – Riots break out between New South Wales Police and Aboriginal residents of Redfern, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, Australia.
 * February 14 – The roof of the Transvaal water park in Moscow collapses, killing 25 and injuring more than 100.
 * February 17–20 – A nor'easter blizzard devastates Atlantic Canada, dumping more than 37.4 in. (95 cm.) on some areas.
 * February 18 – A train carrying a convoy of petrol, fertiliser, and sulfur derails and explodes in Iran, killing 320 people.
 * February 20 – Conservatives win a majority in the Iranian parliament election.
 * February 24 – A 6.5 Richter scale earthquake in Northern Morocco hits in the Rif mountains near the city of Al Hoceima, killing 400. Ait Kamara is destroyed; 517 are killed.
 * February 26 – The United States lifts a 23-year travel ban against Libya.
 * February 26 – Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski is killed in a plane crash near Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
 * February 27 – 2004 SuperFerry 14 bombing: The Abu Sayyaf guerrilla group is blamed for the deadliest terrorist attack at sea in world history, which kills 116 in the Philippines.
 * February 28 – Over 1 million Taiwanese participating in the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally form a 500-kilometre (300-mile) long human chain to commemorate the 228 Incident in 1947.
 * February 29 – 2004 Haiti rebellion: Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigns as president of Haiti. The chief justice of the Haitian Supreme Court, Boniface Alexandre, is sworn in as interim president.
 * February 29 – The 76th Academy Awards, hosted by Billy Crystal, are held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California, with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King directed by Peter Jackson, winning a record-tying 11 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director.

March

 * March 2 – John Kerry effectively clinches the 2004 U.S. Democratic Party presidential nomination by winning 9 out of 10 "Super Tuesday" primaries and caucuses.
 * March 2 – NASA announces that the Mars rover MER-B (Opportunity) has confirmed that its landing area was once drenched in water.
 * March 10 – Five British men are released from detention at Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay. After they land at RAF Brize Norton, 4 of them are immediately arrested for questioning.
 * March 11 – Al-Qaeda execute simultaneous terrorist attacks, with bombs in 4 rush-hour trains in Madrid, killing 191 people.
 * March 12 – Following the terrorist attacks in Madrid the previous day, millions of protesters against terrorism take to the streets of Spanish cities.
 * March 14 – Two suicide bombers kill 11 Israeli civilians in Ashdod, Israel.
 * March 14 – Spanish legislative election, 2004: The incumbent government led by José María Aznar is defeated by the Socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
 * March 14 – Russian presidential election, 2004: Vladimir Putin easily wins a second term.
 * March 15 – The new Spanish Government announces that it will withdraw Spain's 1,300 troops in Iraq.
 * March 17 – A pogrom-like organized violence breaks out over 2 days in Kosovo; 19 people are killed, 8000 Serbian homes burned, schools and businesses vandalized, and over 300 Orthodox monasteries and churches burned and destroyed.
 * March 19 – The United Nations launches a political corruption investigation due to the scandal over its Iraqi Oil for Food program.
 * March 20 – President Chen Shui-bian wins the Taiwanese presidential election by 0.2% of the vote. The day before, he and Vice President Annette Lu were shot. Lien Chan refuses to concede and demands a recount. A controversial peace referendum opposed by the People's Republic of China is invalidated.
 * March 21 – Malaysian general election, 2004: The incumbent Barisan Nasional party wins 198 out of 219 seats in the Parliament of Malaysia.
 * March 21 – Salvadoran presidential election, 2004: Antonio Saca is elected President of El Salvador (inaugurated June 1).
 * March 22 – Palestinians protest in the streets after an Israeli helicopter gunship fires a missile at the entourage of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in Gaza City, killing him and 7 others.
 * March 25 – British prime minister Tony Blair visits Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi, in return for the dismantling of Libya's Weapons of mass destruction programme in December 2003 (the first time a major western leader had visited the nation in several decades).
 * March 28 – In France, the government of prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin suffers a stunning and unprecedented defeat in regional elections.
 * March 28 – The first ever reported South Atlantic hurricane makes landfall in South Brazil in the state of Santa Catarina – the hurricane is dubbed Hurricane Catarina.
 * March 29 – The Republic of Ireland bans smoking in all enclosed work places, including restaurants, pubs and bars.
 * March 29 – The largest expansion of NATO to date takes place, allowing Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia into the organization.
 * March 31 – Four American private military contractors working for Blackwater USA are killed, and their bodies mutilated, after being ambushed in Fallujah, Iraq.

April

 * April 5 – Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom begins a state visit to France to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale.
 * April 8 – Darfur conflict: The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement is signed by the Sudanese government and 2 rebel groups.
 * April 17 – Israeli helicopters fire missiles at a convoy of vehicles in the Gaza Strip, killing the Gaza leader of Hamas, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi.
 * April 20 – In Iraq, 12 mortars are fired on Abu Ghraib Prison by insurgents; 22 detainees are killed and 92 wounded.
 * April 21 – Mordechai Vanunu, who revealed an Israeli nuclear weapons program in the 1980s, is released from prison in Israel after serving 18 years for treason.
 * April 22 – Ryongchon disaster: Two trains carrying explosives and fuel collide in Ryongchon, North Korea, killing 161 people, injuring 1,300 and destroying thousands of homes.
 * April 22 – The last coal mine in France closes, ending nearly 300 years of coal mining.
 * April 24 – Referendums on the Annan Plan for Cyprus, which proposes to re-unite the island, take place in both the Greek-controlled and the Turkish-controlled parts. Although the Turkish Cypriots vote in favour, the Greek Cypriots reject the proposal.
 * April 28 – Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse in Iraq is revealed on the television show 60 Minutes II.
 * April 29 – The last Oldsmobile rolls off of the assembly line.

May
8 May 22 – Dr. Manmohan Singh assumes office as the 17th and first Sikh Prime Minister of the Republic Of India.
 * May 1 – The largest expansion to date of the European Union takes place, extending the Union by 10 member-states: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Malta and Cyprus.
 * May 4 – A WNBC helicopter crashes in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York. This event is covered by rival station WABC-TV.
 * May 8 – Would-be "Saudi Princess" "Antoinette Millard" surfaces in New York City, claiming that muggers had stolen jewels worth of $262,000 from her (she later proves to be an impostor).
 * May 9 – Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov is killed by a landmine placed under a VIP stage during a World War II memorial parade in Grozny.
 * May 9 – Canada wins the World Ice Hockey Championship in Prague.
 * May 10 – Philippine general election, 2004: Incumbent president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is elected for 6-year term.
 * May 12 – An American civilian contractor in Iraq, Nick Berg, is shown being decapitated by a group allegedly linked to al-Qaida on a web-distributed video.
 * May 13 – In India, the Congress Party wins a surprise victory in the elections to the Lok Sabha.
 * May 14 – Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark, marries Australian Mary Donaldson in Copenhagen.
 * May 15 – Arsenal completes a whole English Premiership season unbeaten, 38 games.
 * May 15 – South Africa is awarded the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
 * May 15 – Ruslana wins the Eurovision Song Contest 2004 for Ukraine, with the song Wild Dances in Istanbul, Turkey.
 * May 16 – A coup d'état in Chad against President Idriss Déby fails.
 * May 17 – Ezzedine Salim, holder of the rotating leadership of the Iraq Interim Governing Council, is killed in a bomb blast in Baghdad.
 * May 17 – Massachusetts legalizes same-sex marriage, in compliance with a ruling from the state's Supreme Judicial Court (Goodridge v. Department of Public Health).
 * May 19 – Tony Blair is hit with a purple flour bomb in the chamber of the House of Commons during a session of Prime Minister's Questions.
 * May 19 – Jeremy Sivits pleads guilty in a court-martial in connection with alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
 * May 22 – Manchester United defeat Millwall F.C 3–0 to win the FA Cup
 * May 23 – A section of the ceiling in Terminal 2E at Paris's Charles de Gaulle International Airport collapses, claiming at least 6 lives.
 * May 23 – Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi visits North Korea, to secure the release of the families of the 9 abducted Japanese citizens returned earlier.
 * May 24 – North Korea bans mobile phones (see Communications in North Korea).
 * May 26 – Terry Nichols is convicted by an Oklahoma state court on murder charges stemming from the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
 * May 26 – F.C. Porto wins the European Champion Clubs Cup, defeating A.S. Monaco 3–0.
 * May 29 – The National World War II Memorial is dedicated in Washington, DC.
 * May 30 – Thousands of people in Hong Kong take to the streets to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

June

 * June 1 – Sasebo slashing: Satomi Mitarai, a 12-year-old Japanese schoolgirl attending Okubo Elementary School in Sasebo, Japan, is murdered. Her killer is an 11-year-old classmate identified by Japanese authorities as "Girl A".
 * June 3 – All outgoing flights from the UK are temporarily grounded following an air traffic control computer failure. BBC NEWS
 * June 3 – Central Intelligence Agency director George Tenet tenders his resignation, citing "personal reasons". John E. McLaughlin, CIA Deputy Director, becomes the acting Director until a permanent Director is chosen and confirmed by Congress.
 * June 4 – Marvin Heemeyer destroys many local buildings with a home-made tank in Granby, Colorado.
 * June 5 – Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States, dies at his home in Bel-Air, California at the age of 93. A 6-day state funeral follows after his death.
 * June 6 – At the 58th Annual Tony Awards, Avenue Q upsets front-runner Wicked to win the award for Best Musical.
 * June 8 – The first transit of Venus since 1882 occurs; the next one will occur in 2012.
 * June 8 – The 30th G8 summit takes place over the next 2 days on Sea Island, in Georgia, USA.
 * June 8 – The pickled heart of Louis XVII of France is buried in the royal crypt at Saint-Denis.
 * June 11 – Terry Nichols is spared the death penalty by an Oklahoma state court on murder charges stemming from the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The decision comes on the third anniversary of the execution of his co-defendant, Timothy McVeigh, in Terre Haute, Indiana.
 * June 12 – A 1.3 kg chondrite type meteorite strikes a house in Ellerslie, New Zealand, causing serious damage but no injuries.
 * June 16 – The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (or "9/11 Commission") issues an initial report of its findings.
 * June 21 – In Mojave, California, SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight.
 * June 28 – June 29 – The 2004 Istanbul Summit is held.
 * June 28 – Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe trains collide in a rural area outside of San Antonio, Texas; 40 cars are derailed, including one chlorine car. Three people die, another 50 people are hospitalized because of exposure to the gas.
 * June 28 – The U.S.-led coalition occupying Iraq transfers sovereignty to an Iraqi Interim Government.
 * June 28 – Canadian federal election, 2004: The Liberal Party, led by Paul Martin, is reduced to a minority government, after holding a majority since November 1993.
 * June 30 – Preliminary hearings begin in Iraq in the trial of former president Saddam Hussein, for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

July

 * July 1 – The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft arrives at Saturn.
 * July 1 – The Vatican gains full membership rights in the United Nations except voting.
 * July 4 – Groundbreaking for the Freedom Tower begins at Ground Zero in New York City.
 * July 4 – Greece beats Portugal 1–0 to win the Euro 2004.
 * July 22 – The Old Bridge of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina is reconstructed and reopened after being destroyed by Bosnian Croat forces on November 9, 1993.
 * July 25 – Over 100,000 opponents of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan of 2004 participate in a human chain from Gush Katif, to the Western Wall, Jerusalem (90 kilometers).
 * July 25 – Lance Armstrong of Austin, Texas wins an unprecedented 6th consecutive Tour de France cycling title.
 * July 26–29 – The Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts nominates John Kerry for U.S. President and John Edwards for Vice President. Future President Barack Obama delivers the keynote address.

August

 * August 1 – A supermarket fire in Asunción, Paraguay, kills about 400 and leaves over 100 missing.
 * August 1 – A bomb attack occurs in front of Prague's Casino Royal.
 * August 2 – Monday demonstrations against social cutbacks began in Germany.
 * August 3 – The Statue of Liberty reopens after security improvements.
 * August 3 – NASA's MESSENGER is launched (it will be captured into Mercury's orbit on March 18, 2011).
 * August 6 – A United Nations report blaming the government of Sudan for crimes against humanity in Darfur is released.
 * August 9 – At the Mihama Nuclear Power Plant, a pipe leaking hot water and steam kills 5 and injures 6 others, in the 2nd worst nuclear disaster in Japan.
 * August 12 – Singapore's prime minister Goh Chok Tong hands over his position to Lee Hsien Loong.
 * August 12 – New Jersey Governor James McGreevey announces that he is "a gay American" and will resign effective November 15, 2004.
 * August 13–29 – The 2004 Summer Olympics are held in Athens.
 * August 13 – Hurricane Charley kills 27 people in Florida, after killing 4 in Cuba and 1 in Jamaica. Charley makes landfall near Cayo Costa, FL as a Category 4 hurricane. Charley is the most intense hurricane to strike the United States since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
 * August 16 – Severe flooding occurs in the village of Boscastle in Cornwall.
 * August 18 – In Dublin, Ireland, the Dublin Port Tunnel excavation works are completed and the final tunnel boring machine breakthrough ceremony takes place.
 * August 20 – Elbegdorj Tsakhia, the peaceful democratic revolutionary leader of Mongolia, becomes Prime Minister of Mongolia for the second time.
 * August 21 – A series of blasts rocks an opposition party rally in Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing at least 13 people.
 * August 22 – Armed robbers steal Edvard Munch's The Scream, Madonna, and other paintings from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway.
 * August 24 – Two airliners in Russia, carrying a total of 89 passengers, crash within minutes of each other after flying out of Domodedovo International Airport, leaving no survivors. Authorities suspect suicide attacks by rebels from Chechnya to be the cause of the crashes.
 * August 29 – Around 200,000 protesters demonstrate in New York City against U.S. President George W. Bush and his government, ahead of the 2004 Republican National Convention.
 * August 29 – Michael Schumacher secures a record 7th world championship title, by finishing second in the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.
 * August 30 – September 2 – U.S. President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are renominated at the Republican National Convention in New York City.
 * August 31 – Two suicide attacks on buses in Beer Sheva, Israel, kill at least 16 people and injure at least 60. Hamas claims responsibility for the attacks.
 * August 31 – A woman commits a suicide attack near a subway station in northern Moscow, Russia, killing at least 10 people and injuring at least 50. Authorities hold Chechen rebels responsible.

September

 * September – The Great Laxey Mine Railway of the Isle of Man is re-opened.
 * September 1 – Chechen terrorists take between 1,000 and 1,500 people hostage, mostly children, in a school in the Beslan school hostage crisis. The hostage-takers demand the release of Chechen rebels imprisoned in neighbouring Ingushetia and the independence of Chechnya from Russia.
 * September 2 – The United Nations Security Council adopts Resolution 1559, calling for the removal of all foreign troops from Lebanon. This measure is largely aimed at Syrian troops.
 * September 2 – Hurricane Ivan forms.
 * September 3 – Russian forces end the siege at a school in Beslan, Northern Ossetia. At least 335 people (among which are 32 of the approximately 40 hostage-takers) are killed and at least 700 people injured.
 * September 3 – Hurricane Frances makes landfall in Florida. After killing 2 people in the Bahamas, Hurricane Frances kills 10 people in Florida, 2 in Georgia and 1 in South Carolina.
 * September 7 – The Scottish Parliament meets in the new Scottish Parliament Building for the first time.
 * September 7 – Hurricane Ivan passes directly over Grenada, killing 37 people. It passes over other Caribbean islands over the next 2 days, killing 5 people in Venezuela, 4 in the Dominican Republic, 1 in Tobago and 20 in Jamaica.
 * September 8 – In the "Rathergate" affair, the first Internet posts appear, pointing out that documents claimed by CBS News to be typewritten memos from the early 1970s appear instead to have been produced using modern word processing systems.
 * September 9 – A bomb blast outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, kills 11 and injures up to 100 people.
 * September 9 – Typhoon Songda hits western Japan, killing 45 and injuring another 1,352.
 * September 13 – The U.S. Assault Weapons Ban expires.
 * September 15 – Davíð Oddsson, Prime Minister of Iceland, steps down after serving as prime minister since April 30, 1991. Oddson trades posts with his foreign minister Halldór Ásgrímsson, who then becomes Prime Minister.
 * September 15 – Security at the Palace of Westminster is compromised, when the House of Commons is stormed by a small group of protestors during a debate about fox hunting.
 * September 15 – "Girl A", who committed the Sasebo slashing, is sentenced to be institutionalized.
 * September 16 – Hurricane Ivan strikes Gulf Shores, Alabama, as a Category 3 storm, killing 25 in Alabama and Florida, becoming the 3rd costliest hurricane in American history (currently the 4th following the destruction of 2005's Hurricane Katrina).
 * September 17 – Hurricane Jeanne causes mudslides in Haiti, killing 3006.
 * September 17 – The 2004 Summer Paralympics commences in Athens, Greece.
 * September 17 – Mexico and Japan finish 2-year-long negotiations and sign a Free Trade Agreement in Mexico City.
 * September 21 – Construction of the Burj Khalifa begins.
 * September 22 – The TV series Lost airs its pilot.
 * September 23 – Mount St. Helens becomes active again.
 * September 23 – Tropical Storm Ivan, having come around and reformed in the Gulf of Mexico, makes its final landfall near Cameron, Louisiana, to little effect. In total, the storm kills 92 people.
 * September 24 – Major League Baseball announces that the Montreal Expos will move to Washington D.C. in 2005.
 * September 25 – Port Adelaide Power wins their first premiership against the Brisbane Lions in the AFL Grand Final.
 * September 25 – Hurricane Jeanne makes landfall near Port Saint Lucie, Florida, near the location Hurricane Frances hit 2 weeks earlier. Jeanne kills over 3,030, mostly in Haiti.
 * September 29 – In Mojave, California, the first Ansari X-Prize flight takes place of SpaceShipOne, which is competing with a number of spacecraft (including Canada's Da Vinci Project, claimed to be its closest rival) and goes on to win the prize on October 4.

October

 * October 4 – Two car bombs kill at least 16 people and injure dozens more in Baghdad.
 * October 5 – A fire breaks out on the Canadian submarine HMCS Chicoutimi, leaving it stranded without power in the North Atlantic ocean, off the north coast of Ireland; 1 crewmember is killed.
 * October 5 – West Sulawesi officially becomes a province in Indonesia after the expansion of South Sulawesi.
 * October 8 – Suicide bombers detonate 2 bombs at the Red Sea resort of Taba, Egypt, killing 34 people, mainly Israeli tourists and Egyptian workers.
 * October 9 – Queen Elizabeth II opens the new Scottish Parliament Building in a ceremony in Edinburgh.
 * October 9 – Incumbent Prime Minister of Australia John Howard leads the Liberal-National coalition to victory over the Labor Party led by Mark Latham in federal elections.
 * October 9 – Direct elections for president are held for the first time in Afghanistan. Interim president Hamid Karzai is eventually declared the winner.
 * October 10 – Abdullahi Yusuf is chosen as the new transitional president of Somalia.
 * October 14 – Prince Norodom Sihamoni is chosen as the new king of Cambodia.
 * October 16 – The New York Yankees defeat the Boston Red Sox 19–8 in Game 3 of Major League Baseball's American League Championship Series. The game, which pushes the Yankees to a 3 games to 0 series lead, sets a record for longest 9 inning baseball game.
 * October 16 – Arsenal loses for the first time in 49 league games, a national record, going down 2–0 to Manchester United at Old Trafford.
 * October 17 – A referendum in Belarus approves the lifting of constitutional term limits for the presidency.
 * October 19 – General Khin Nyunt is replaced by Lieutenant-General Soe Win as Prime Minister of Myanmar.
 * October 19 – A team of explorers reaches the bottom of the world's deepest cave, located in Krubera. The depth reached is 2,080 meters (6,824 feet), setting a world record. (National Geographic)
 * October 20 – The Ubuntu operating system is first released.
 * October 20 – Corporate Airlines Flight 5966 crashes in Missouri, killing 13 people and injuring 2.
 * October 20 – Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono becomes the first directly elected President of Indonesia.
 * October 21 – The Ministry of Defence approves the deployment of the Black Watch regiment of the British Army to Baghdad, Iraq, after a request for assistance by the U.S. government.
 * October 21 – Typhoon Tokage kill 98, injured 552 in western Japan.
 * October 23 – A Magnitude 6.7 earthquake and aftershocks of similar scale occur in the Tokamachi area. A huge landslide occurs on the outskirts of Nagaoka. According to Japanese officials, 68 people are killed, 4,085 are injured, and 103,000 are rendered homeless.
 * October 24 – Brazil successfully launches its first rocket into space.
 * October 24 – Michael Schumacher wins his 7th Formula One World Drivers Championship (5th consecutive), making him the most successful driver in the history of Formula One.
 * October 25 – Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King receive the Congressional Gold Medal.
 * October 26 – The Cassini probe passes within 1,200 km of Titan.
 * October 27 – The Boston Red Sox win the World Series for the first time since 1918, breaking the Curse of the Bambino.
 * October 27 – Details of the discovery of a new, recent species of fossil hominid, Homo floresiensis, from the island of Flores, Indonesia, are published.
 * October 29 – European heads of state sign in Rome the Treaty and Final Act, establishing the first European Constitution.
 * October 30 – A 163-metre-high radio mast in Peterborough, UK collapses at a fire.
 * October 31 – Leftist candidate Tabaré Vázquez is elected President of Uruguay.

November

 * November 2 – United States presidential election, 2004: U.S. President George W. Bush defeats Senator John Kerry. Republicans make gains in the House and Senate.
 * November 2 – Eleven American states ban gay marriage.
 * November 2 – Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh is assassinated in Amsterdam, Netherlands by Mohammed Bouyeri.
 * November 6 – The Ufton Nervet rail crash in Berkshire, England kills 7 people.
 * November 6 – In Côte d'Ivoire, National Army bombings kill 9 people, including French UN soldiers. French UN forces retaliate by destroying the National Army's air force.
 * November 7 – U.S. forces launch a major assault on the Iraqi town of Fallujah, in an effort to rid the area of insurgents before the Iraqi elections in January.
 * November 8 – The Irish High Court rules that Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan can sue the Revenue Commissioner to have their Vancouver, British Columbia Same-sex marriage recognized for tax purposes.
 * November 9 – A meeting of the Scottish Socialist Party executive leads to the resignation of Tommy Sheridan as convenor. Contradictory accounts of what Sheridan said at the meeting become hotly disputed in the Sheridan v News International trial.
 * November 13 – After six days of intense battles, the Iraqi town of Fallujah is fully occupied by U.S. forces.
 * November 14 – United States Secretary of State Colin Powell submits his resignation. He is replaced by Condoleezza Rice after her confirmation by the United States Congress.
 * November 16 – The European Space Agency probe, Smart 1, passes from Earth orbit into the orbit of the Moon.
 * November 16 – A train crash near Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia, injures 150 people.
 * November 16 – The People's Republic of China agrees to invest $20 billion dollars in Argentina, a deal signed days before the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum to be held in Santiago, Chile.
 * November 16 – NASA's hypersonic Scramjet breaks a record by reaching a velocity of about 7,000 mph in an unmanned experimental flight. It obtains a speed of Mach 9.6, almost 10 times the speed of sound.
 * November 17–21 – The APEC Summit is held in Santiago, Chile.
 * November 19 – The NBA's Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons engage in a brawl that involves fans and players. The incident gets (then) Pacer Ron Artest suspended for the remainder of the season.
 * November 21 – Ukrainian presidential election, 2004: Viktor Yanukovych is declared the winner in the final round. International election observers express severe criticism, and large crowds gather in a protest rally in Kiev; 12 days later, the Supreme Court annuls the result, and a new poll is scheduled.
 * November 25 – The Indian political party Congress Jananayaka Peravai merges into the Indian National Congress.
 * November 26 – A group of Iraqi political leaders, primarily from Sunni and Kurdish parties, advocate a 6-month delay in popular elections scheduled for January 2005.
 * November 28 – An coal mine explosion in China kills over 150.
 * November 28 – Ricardo Lagos, President of Chile, promises economic compensation to 28,000 torture victims of Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship.
 * November 28 – A male Po'o-uli dies of avian malaria at the Maui Bird Conservation Center in Olinda before it can breed, making the species in all probability extinct.

December

 * December 3 – The Colombian government extradites Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, one of the most powerful drug dealers in the world, arrested in 1995 and 2003, to the United States.
 * December 6 – Terrorists attack the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing several people.
 * December 8 – The biggest Chinese PC producer Lenovo announces its plan to purchase IBM's global PC business, making it the third largest world PC maker after Dell and Hewlett-Packard.
 * December 10 – New Zealand bans smoking in all public places, including bars.
 * December 11 – Tests show that Ukrainian opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned with a large dose of dioxin.
 * December 13 – Software giants Oracle Corporation and PeopleSoft agree to merge in a $10.3 billion deal, creating the second largest maker of business applications software.
 * December 14 – The world's tallest bridge, the Millau bridge over the River Tarn in the Massif Central mountains, France, is opened by President Jacques Chirac.
 * December 15 – Albanian terrorists take a bus and its passengers hostage in Athens, Greece and demand 1 million euros in ransom money.
 * December 16 – The House of Lords rules that the British Government breaches human rights legislation, by detaining without trial foreign nationals suspected of being terrorists.
 * December 16 – IT security company Symantec Corp signs a definitive agreement to merge with Veritas Software Corp, valued at $13.5 billion, in an all-stock transaction.
 * December 16 – The South Korean high-speed rail system, Korea Train Express, opens between Seoul and Busan.
 * December 21 – Iraqi insurgents attack a U.S. military base in the city of Mosul, killing 22 people.
 * December 22 – Armed robbers in Northern Ireland steal over £22 million from the headquarters of the Northern Bank. Unionist politicians and the Police Service of Northern Ireland blame the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and stall the peace process.
 * December 26 – One of the worst natural disasters in recorded history hits Southeast Asia, when the strongest earthquake in 40 years hits the entire Indian Ocean region. The massive 9.3 magnitude earthquake, epicentered just off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, generates enormous tsunami waves that crash into the coastal areas of a number of nations including Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. The official death toll in the affected countries stands at 186,983 while more than 40,000 people are still missing.
 * December 26 – The re-run of the second round of the Ukrainian presidential election takes place. Opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko is declared the winner.
 * December 27 – Astrophysicists from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching near Munich measure the strongest burst from a magnetar. At 21:30:26 UT the earth is hit by a huge wave front of gamma and X-rays. It is the strongest flux of high-energetic gamma radiation measured so far.
 * December 28 – The Ukrainian transport minister, Heorhiy Kirpa, is found shot dead, in a suspected suicide.
 * December 30 – A fire in a Buenos Aires night club (República Cromagnon) kills 194 people during a rock concert.
 * December 31 – Taipei 101, at the time tallest skyscraper in the world, standing at a height of 1,670 feet (509 metres ), officially opens.
 * December 31 – Simón Trinidad, high-profile FARC leader, is extradited to the United States, following the second extradition of a high drug dealer in a month and in 2004.
 * December 31 – Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych resigns.

January

 * January 4 – Gunmen assassinate the Governor of Baghdad, Ali Al-Haidri.
 * January 9 – The same storm which pounded the U.S. earlier in the month hits England, Scandinavia and the Baltic States, leaving 13 dead with widespread flooding and power cuts.
 * January 9 – Mahmoud Abbas is elected to succeed Yasser Arafat as Palestinian Authority President.
 * January 12 – Deep Impact is launched from Cape Canaveral by a Delta 2 rocket.
 * January 14 – The Huygens probe lands on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn.
 * January 20 – George W. Bush is inaugurated in Washington, D.C. for his second term as the 43rd President of the United States.
 * January 25 – A stampede at the Mandher Devi temple in Mandhradevi during a religious pilgrimage in India kills at least 250.
 * January 30 – The first free Parliamentary elections in Iraq since 1958 take place.

February

 * February 9 – An ETA car bomb injures at least 40 people at a conference centre in Madrid.
 * February 10 – North Korea announces that it possesses nuclear weapons as a protection against the hostility it feels from the United States.
 * February 10 – Saudi Arabia holds its first ever municipal elections, in which only male citizens are allowed to vote.
 * February 14 – Former Prime Minister of Lebanon Rafik Hariri is killed in Beirut after an assassination attempt by suicide bombing, it also kills at least 16 other people and injures 120 others.
 * February 14 – 59 people are killed and 200 injured after a fire breaks out in a mosque in Tehran, Iran.
 * February 16 – The Kyoto Protocol goes into effect, without the support of the United States and Australia.
 * February 19 – Suicide bombers kill more than 30 people in Iraq as Shia Muslims mark Ashura, their holiest day.
 * February 22 – More than 500 people are killed and over 1,000 injured, after entire villages are flattened in an earthquake (6.4 on the Richter scale) in the Zarand region of Kerman province in southern Iran.
 * February 26 – Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak asks Parliament to amend the constitution to allow multi-candidate presidential elections before September 2005.

March

 * March 3 – The freighter M/V Karen Danielsen crashes into the Great Belt Bridge of Denmark. All traffic across the bridge is closed, effectively separating Denmark in two.
 * March 3 – Millionaire Steve Fossett breaks a world record by completing the first non-stop, non-refueled, solo flight around the world in the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer.
 * March 3 – Four Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers are gunned down in Mayerthorpe, Alberta, Canada. It is deadliest day in Canadian law enforcement in over 120 years.
 * March 4 – The car of released Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena is fired on by U.S. soldiers in Iraq, causing the death of 1 passenger and injuring 2 more.
 * March 8 – The Pakistan Army opens fire on insurgents in Baluchistan, in the first armed uprising since General Rahimuddin Khan's stabilization of the province in 1978.
 * March 14 – The People's Republic of China ratifies an anti-secession law, aimed at preventing Taiwan from declaring independence.
 * March 14 – 800,000 people gather for an opposition rally in Beirut, a month after the death of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. It is the largest rally in Lebanon's history.
 * March 19 – A time bomb explodes in a Muslim shrine in Quetta, southwestern Pakistan, killing at least 29 people and wounding 40.
 * March 24 – The Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan reaches its climax with the overthrow of president Askar Akayev.
 * March 26 – The Taiwanese government calls on 1 million Taiwanese to demonstrate in Taipei, in opposition to the Anti-Secession Law of the People's Republic of China. Between 200,000 and 300,000 attend the walk.

April

 * April 2 – Pope John Paul II dies; over 4 million people travel to the Vatican to mourn him.
 * April 6 – The first 13th root calculation of a 200-digit number is computed by Frenchman Alexis Lemaire.
 * April 8 – A referendum is held in Curaçao on independence vs. integration with the Netherlands.
 * April 9 – Tens of thousands of demonstrators, many of them supporters of Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr, march through Baghdad denouncing the U.S. occupation of Iraq, 2 years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, and rally in the square where his statue was toppled in 2003.
 * April 17 – Twelve holidaymakers are killed in southern Switzerland when a bus carrying 27 people plunges 656 feet into a ravine.
 * April 18 – Five people die in ethnic clashes in Iran's south-west Khuzestan province.
 * April 19 – Papal conclave, 2005: Pope Benedict XVI (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) succeeds Pope John Paul II, becoming the 265th pope.
 * April 20 – An earthquake (5.8 on the Richter scale) hits Fukuoka and Kasuga, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, injuring 56.
 * April 25 – Amagasaki rail crash: A passenger train derails in Amagasaki Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, killing 104 people and injuring at least another 450.
 * April 26 – Facing international pressure, Syria withdraws the last of its 14,000 troop military garrison in Lebanon, ending its 29-year military domination of that country.
 * April 27 – The Superjumbo jet aircraft Airbus A380 makes its first flight from Toulouse.

May

 * May 3 – At least 32 people are killed and 9 others injured when 3 two-story buildings in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore collapse after gas cylinders stored in one of them explode.
 * May 4 – In one of the largest insurgent attacks in Iraq, at least 60 people are killed and dozens wounded in a suicide bombing at a Kurdish police recruitment center in Irbil, northern Iraq.
 * May 13 – Uzbek troops kill up to 700 during protests in eastern Uzbekistan over the trials of 23 accused Islamic extremists. President Islom Karimov defends the act.
 * May 15 – A passenger ferry capsizes and sinks in strong winds in the Bura Gauranga River in Bangladesh, leaving 200 people missing.
 * May 16 – George Galloway appears before a United States Senate committee, to answer allegations of making money from the Iraqi Oil-for-Food Programme.
 * May 17 – Kuwaiti women are granted the right to vote.

June

 * June 21 – A Volna booster rocket carrying the first light sail spacecraft (a joint Russian-United States project) fails 83 seconds after its launch, destroying the spacecraft.
 * June 28 – Queen Elizabeth II conducts the International Fleet Review of 167 international warships in the Solent, as part of the Trafalgar 200 celebrations.

July

 * July 2 – Live 8, a set of 10 simultaneous concerts, takes place throughout the world, raising interest in the Make Poverty History campaign.
 * July 4 – NASA's "Copper bullet" from the Deep Impact spacecraft hits Comet Tempel 1, creating a crater for scientific studies.
 * July 4 – Violent anti-G8 demonstrations occur in Gleneagles, Scotland.
 * July 4 – The Italy-USA Foundation is established in Rome, Italy.
 * July 6 – The European Parliament rejects the Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions in its second reading in the codecision procedure.
 * July 6 – The International Olympic Committee awards the 2012 Summer Olympics to London.
 * July 7 – Four explosions (3 on the London Underground and 1 on a bus) rock the transport network in London, killing 56 and injuring over 700.
 * July 12 – Terrorists kill 5 people and wound 90 in a crowded mall in Netanya, Israel. Islamic Jihad claims responsibility for attack.
 * July 23 – A series of blasts hits a resort town in Egypt.
 * July 28 – The Provisional IRA issues a statement formally ordering an end to the armed campaign it has pursued since 1969, and ordering all its units to dump their arms.

August

 * August 12 – The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is launched.
 * August 14 - Helios Airways Flight 522 crashes near the town of Grammatiko in Greece, killing 121 people. Observations from fighter jet aircraft indicate a decompression problem.
 * August 16 – West Caribbean Airways Flight 708 crashes into a mountain in Venezuela, killing 152 passengers.
 * August 18 – Peace Mission 2005, the first joint China–Russia military exercise, begins its 8-day training on the Shandong peninsula.
 * August 22 – A 4.1 kg meteorite crashes into the Dotito area of Zambezi Escarpment in Zimbabwe, leaving a 150 mm crater.
 * August 23 – Israel's unilateral disengagement from 25 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and West Bank ends.
 * August 29 – At least 1,836 are killed, and severe damage is caused along the U.S. Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina.
 * August 31 – A crowd crush on the Al-Aaimmah bridge in Baghdad kills several hundred civilians (see Baghdad bridge stampede).

September

 * September 2 – Protesters and Israeli forces clash in Bil'in.
 * September 11 – Japan general election, 2005: Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and the Liberal Democratic Party are returned to power.
 * September 14–16 – The largest UN World Summit in history is held in New York City.
 * September 18 – Afghan parliamentary election: Former Northern Alliance warlords and their followers claim victory.
 * September 19 – North Korea agrees to stop building nuclear weapons in exchange for aid and cooperation.
 * September 23 – Convicted bank thief and Boricua Popular Army leader, Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, is killed in his home in Hormigueros, Puerto Rico when members of the FBI attempt to serve an arrest warrant.
 * September 26 – U.S. Army Reservist Lynndie England is convicted by a military jury on 6 of 7 counts, in connection with the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.
 * September 30 – Controversial drawings of Muhammad are printed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

October

 * October 1 – The 2005 Bali bombings kill 26 people and injure more than 100.
 * October 1 – The world's largest bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, is formed by the merger of 2 Japanese banking conglomerates.
 * October 1 – An Australian photojournalist in Afghanistan, Stephen Dupont, films U.S. soldiers burning 2 dead Taliban militias' bodies.
 * October 8 – The 2005 Kashmir earthquake kills about 80,000 people.
 * October 12 – The second Chinese spacecraft, Shenzhou 6, is launched, carrying Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng for 5 days in orbit.
 * October 15 – The referendum on the new Proposed Iraqi constitution is held.
 * October 15 – The Qinghai-Tibet Railway is completed.
 * October 19 – The Trials of Saddam Hussein begin.
 * October 21 – The 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar is observed, with celebrations held around the United Kingdom.
 * October 29 – At least 61 people are killed and many others wounded in 3 powerful blasts in the Indian capital, Delhi (see 29 October 2005 Delhi bombings).

November

 * November 2 – The Spanish Congress of Deputies approves the admission to formality of the new Catalan Statute of Autonomy with the support of all the groups except the People's Party (PP), which the same day files an objection of unconstitutionality.
 * November 4 – The U.S. and Uruguay governments sign a Bilateral Investment Treaty.
 * November 9 – At least 50 people are killed and more than 120 injured in a series of coordinated suicide bombings in Amman, Jordan (See 2005 Amman bombings).
 * November 13 – Andrew Stimpson, a 25-year old British man, is reported as the first person proven to have been 'cured' of HIV.
 * November 25 – The 20th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting opens in Valletta, Malta.
 * November 28 – December 9 – The United Nations Climate Change Conference is held in Montreal, Quebec.
 * November 30 – Surgeons in France carry out the first human face transplant.

December

 * December 6 – An Iranian C-130 Hercules airplane crashes into a ten-story building in a civilian area of Tehran, the capital of Iran, killing all 94 people aboard and 34 residents of the building (128 total).
 * December 7 – The European Union TLD .eu is launched, and replaces .eu.int. Initially this will be only for business purposes. From 7 April 2006 onwards, EU citizens can also register .eu domains.
 * December 11 – The 2005 Cronulla riots occur in Sydney, Australia, involving up to 5,000 youths.
 * December 12 – Scientists announce that they have created mice with small amounts of human brain cells in an effort to make realistic models of neurological disorders.
 * December 14 – Shakidor Dam fails in Pakistan due to heavy rain.
 * December 16 – The 43rd Mersenne prime is found.
 * December 23 – Chad declares a state of war with Sudan, following a December 18 attack on Adre, which left about 100 people dead.
 * December 31 – Another second is added, 23:59:60, called a leap second, to end the year 2005. The last time this occurred was on June 30, 1998.

January

 * January 1 – Sydney, Australia, has its warmest day on record, when the city reaches 45°C (113°F).
 * January 1 – Russia cuts natural gas to Ukraine over a price dispute.
 * January 2 – The Bad Reichenhall ice rink roof in Germany collapses after heavy snowfall in the Bavarian Alps, killing 15.
 * January 4 – Powers are transferred from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to his deputy, Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, after Sharon suffers a massive hemorrhagic stroke.
 * January 5 – A hotel in Mecca, Saudi Arabia collapses, killing 76 pilgrims visiting to perform hajj.
 * January 6 – The record-breaking 2005 Atlantic hurricane season officially draws to a close as Tropical Storm Zeta dissipates.
 * January 7 – Embroiled in multiple scandals, former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay announces he will not seek to reassume his former post.
 * January 7 – UK Liberal Democratic leader Charles Kennedy resigns after revelations that he has a drinking problem.
 * January 8 – A magnitude 6.9 earthquake, centered off the coast of the Greek island of Kythera, shakes much of Greece and is felt throughout the eastern Mediterranean basin.
 * January 9 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 11,000 (11,011.90) for the first time since June 7, 2001.
 * January 11 – The Augustine Volcano in Alaska erupts twice, marking its first major eruption since 1986.
 * January 12 – A stampede during the Stoning of the devil ritual on the last day at the Hajj in Mina, Saudi Arabia, kills 362 pilgrims.
 * January 14 – A natural gas explosion in a coal mine kills seven and injures five in Romania.
 * January 15 – NASA's Stardust mission successfully ends, the first to return dust from a comet.
 * January 19 – A suicide bomber in Tel Aviv, Israel injures 20, seriously injuring one.
 * January 23 – Stephen Harper wins the federal election in Canada, forming a minority government.
 * January 25 – Hamas wins the majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections.
 * January 25 – Pope Benedict XVI issues his first encycylical, Deus Caritas Est.
 * January 27 – Celebrations are held in Salzburg and around the world, for the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
 * January 27 – Manuel Zelaya becomes President of Honduras.
 * January 28 – Trade hall roof collapses in Katowice, Poland, killing 66 people.
 * January 31 – Samuel Alito is sworn in as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

February

 * February 1 – UAL Corporation, United Airlines' parent company, emerges from bankruptcy after being in that position since December 9, 2002, the longest such filing in history.
 * February 3 – An Egyptian passenger ferry carrying more than 1,400 people, sinks in the Red Sea off the Saudi coast.
 * February 4 – The Wowowee stampede at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig City, Philippines kills 74 people and leaves 600 injured.
 * February 5 – Super Bowl XL: The Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the Seattle Seahawks 21–10
 * February 6 - Stephen Harper is sworn in as Canada's 22nd Prime Minister. He is the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada
 * February 8 – 2006 East Timor crisis: 404 soldiers desert their barracks in East Timor.
 * February 10–26 – The 2006 Winter Olympics are held in Turin, Italy.
 * February 17 – A massive mudslide occurs in Southern Leyte, Philippines; the official death toll is set at 1,126.
 * February 19 – Pasta de Conchos mine disaster: Sixty-five miners die after becoming trapped underground, following an explosion in Nueva Rosita, Mexico.
 * February 22 – A bomb heavily damages the Al Askari Mosque, a Shiite holy site in Samarra, Iraq.
 * February 22 – Over £53.1 million is stolen during the Securitas depot robbery, the largest ever cash robbery in the United Kingdom.
 * February 23 – A roof collapses on a Moscow market, killing 56 people.
 * February 24 – A state of emergency is declared in the Philippines, after an alleged coup d'état against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is foiled.
 * February 25 – Police officers and protesters in Dublin, Ireland are injured when a protest prior to the Love Ulster parade turns into a major riot.
 * February 25 – Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni wins his second re-election, sparking riots in Kampala by opposition supporters.

March

 * March 4 – The final contact attempt with Pioneer 10 receives no response.
 * March 6–20 – The first World Baseball Classic is held in San Diego, California, U.S.A..
 * March 7 – 20 people die and many others are injured in 3 blasts throughout Varanasi, India.
 * March 9 – NASA's Cassini-Huygens spacecraft discovers geysers of a liquid substance shooting from Saturn's moon Enceladus, signaling a possible presence of water.
 * March 10 – NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter enters Mars orbit.
 * March 14 - Penumbral lunar eclipse
 * March 15–26 – The 2006 Commonwealth Games take place in Melbourne, Australia.
 * March 16 – The Blu-ray Disc format is released in the United States
 * March 17 – The United States strikes its 2 remaining Iowa-class battleships from the Naval Vessel Register, ending the age of the battleship.
 * March 22 – ETA declares a permanent ceasefire in their campaign for Basque independence from Spain.
 * March 22 – The Federal Reserve stops the publishing of M3 money supply data.
 * March 25 – A scramjet jet engine, Hyshot III, designed to fly at 7 times the speed of sound, is successfully tested at Woomera, South Australia.
 * March 25 – Seven die in the Capitol Hill Massacre in Seattle, Washington.
 * March 29 - Total solar eclipse
 * March 30 – The first Brazilian astronaut, Marcos Pontes, goes into space in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, Soyuz TMA-8, at 2:29:00 CET.
 * March 30 – The al-Dana capsizes off the coast of Bahrain, killing at least 56 people.

April

 * April 5 – A swan with Avian Flu is discovered in Cellardyke in Fife, Scotland (the first case in the United Kingdom).
 * April 8 – The bodies of 8 murdered men are found in Shedden, Elgin County, Ontario.
 * April 9 – Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is removed from office after 4 months in a coma.
 * April 10 – The Brand India Fair Victoria Park fire at Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India, kills at least 100.
 * April 11 – The European Space Agency's Venus Express spaceprobe enters Venus' orbit.
 * April 11 – President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad confirms that Iran has successfully produced a few grams of low-grade enriched uranium.
 * April 16 – Albert II, Prince of Monaco, reaches the North Pole, becoming the first reigning monarch ever to do so.
 * April 16 – Ireland commemorates the 90th anniversary of the 1916 Rising for the first time since 1971.
 * April 17 – An Islamic Jihad suicide bombing in Tel Aviv kills 9 people and injures dozens.
 * April 20 – Iran announces a deal with Russia, involving a joint uranium enrichment firm on Russian soil; 9 days later Iran announces that it will not move all activity to Russia, thus leading to a de-facto termination of the deal.
 * April 22 – Four Canadian soldiers are killed 75 kilometers north of Kandahar, Afghanistan by a roadside bomb (the worst one-day combat loss for the Canadian army since the Korean War).
 * April 24 – Three explosions in a tourist section of Dahab, Egypt kill 30 and injure over 115.
 * April 25 – The Beaconsfield mine collapse occurs in Tasmania, Australia.
 * April 29 – Massive anti-war demonstrations and a march down Broadway in New York City mark the third year of war in Iraq.
 * April 29 – The Global Night Commute takes place in over 130 cities around the world, to promote the visibility of the Invisible Children in Uganda.

May

 * May 1 – Bolivian President Evo Morales nationalizes his nation's gas fields.
 * May 1 – The Great American Boycott takes place across the United States as marchers protest for immigration rights.
 * May 5 – Fiat chairman Sergio Marchionne announces that the Alfa Romeo automobile brand will return to the United States in 2008, after a 13-year hiatus.
 * May 9 – Beaconsfield mine collapse: After 14 days trapped underground, miners Todd Russell and Brant Webb are rescued in Beaconsfield, Tasmania, Australia.
 * May 20 – Lordi win the Eurovision Song Contest, the first win for Finland and the first hard rock song to win the contest.
 * May 24 – East Timor's Foreign Minister José Ramos-Horta officially requests military assistance from the governments of Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Portugal.
 * May 27 – A 6.3 magnitude earthquake strikes central Java in Indonesia, killing more than 6,000, injuring at least 36,000 and leaving some 1.5 million people homeless.
 * May 27 – The first demonstration for gay rights in Moscow is broken up by the police.

June

 * June 3 – Montenegro declares independence after a May 21 referendum. The state union of Serbia and Montenegro is dissolved on June 5, leaving Serbia as the successor state.
 * June 3 – Seventeen men are arrested in the Greater Toronto Area for alleged ties to a terrorist plot to blow up targets in the region.
 * June 6 – The Union of Islamic Courts gains control of Somalia's capital Mogadishu, ending warlord rule of the city.
 * June 7 – Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and 7 of his aides are killed in a U.S. air raid just north of the town of Baqouba, Iraq.
 * June 9 – An explosion kills 8 Palestinian civilians on a Gaza beach; Israel denies responsibility for the blast.
 * June 9 – Thailand begins celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the accession of Bhumibol Adulyadej to the throne.
 * June 9 – July 9 – The 2006 FIFA World Cup is held in Germany.
 * June 18 – The first Kazakh space satellite KazSat is launched.
 * June 22 – The Magen David Adom and Palestine Red Crescent Society are officially recognized by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
 * June 23 – In Miami, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrests 7 men, accusing them of planning to bomb the Sears Tower (now Willis Tower) in Chicago and other attacks in Miami.
 * June 25 – Warren Buffett donates over US$30 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
 * June 28 – Operation Summer Rains: Israel launches an offensive against militants in Gaza.

July

 * July 1 – The Qinghai-Tibet Railway launches a trial operation, connecting China proper and Tibet for the first time.
 * July 4 – STS-121: Space Shuttle Discovery is launched to the International Space Station. It returns safely on July 17. It is the second return to flight mission after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.
 * July 5 – North Korea test fires missiles, timed with the liftoff of Discovery, preceding the fireworks celebrations that night in America. The long range Taepodong-2 reportedly fails shortly after takeoff.
 * July 6 – The Nathula Pass between India and China, sealed during the Sino-Indian War, re-opens for trade after 44 years.
 * July 9 – S7 Airlines Flight 778 crashes into a concrete barrier shortly after landing, killing at least 122 people and leaving many injured.
 * July 10 – Pakistan International Airlines Flight 688 crashes in Multan, Pakistan shortly after takeoff.
 * July 11 – A series of coordinated bomb attacks strikes several commuter trains in Mumbai, India during the evening rush hour.
 * July 12 – 2006 Lebanon War: Israeli troops invade Lebanon in response to Hezbollah kidnapping two Israeli soldiers and killing 3. Hezbollah declares open war against Israel 2 days later.
 * July 18 – The SS Nomadic, the last floating link to Titanic, returns home to a large reception in Belfast.
 * July 31 – Cuban president Fidel Castro temporarily relinquishes power to his brother Raúl before surgery.

August

 * August 10 – London Metropolitan Police make 21 arrests in connection to an apparent terrorist plot that involved aircraft traveling from the United Kingdom to the United States. Liquids and gels are banned from checked and carry-on baggage.
 * August 11 – A resolution to end the 2006 Lebanon War is unanimously accepted by the United Nations Security Council.
 * August 14 – A UN cease fire takes effect in the 2006 Lebanon War.
 * August 22 – Pulkovo Airlines Flight 612 crashes near the Russian border in Ukraine, killing 171 people, including 45 children.
 * August 22 – The ICM awards Grigori Perelman the Fields Medal for proving the Poincare conjecture, one of 7 Millennium Prize Problems; Perelman refuses the medal.
 * August 23 – In Austria, Natascha Kampusch manages to escape after being kidnapped 8 years ago by Wolfgang Priklopil, who locked her up in his cellar. Priklopil commits suicide by throwing himself in front of a train.
 * August 24 – The International Astronomical Union defines 'planet' at its 26th General Assembly, demoting Pluto to the status of 'dwarf planet' more than 70 years after its discovery.
 * August 27 – Comair Flight 5191, carrying 50 people, crashes shortly after take off from Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky.
 * August 28 – A Greyhound Lines bus from New York City to Montreal, carrying 52 people, crashes at mile 115 on Interstate 87 near Elizabethtown, killing 5 people (including the driver) and seriously injuring others.
 * August 31 – Edvard Munch paintings The Scream and Madonna are recovered in a police raid in Oslo, Norway.

September

 * September 1 – A fire kills 29 of 148 aboard an Iran Air Tours Tu-154M aircraft after the plane lands in Mashhad, Iran.
 * September 2 – A Nimrod MR2 based at RAF Kinloss, Scotland, crashes in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, due to a technical fault. All 14 crew onboard are killed.
 * September 7 - Partial lunar eclipse
 * September 12 – A stampede at a rally in Yemen leaves 41 dead and injures 50.
 * September 12 – Pope Benedict XVI gives a lecture in Germany; he quotes a criticism of the Islamic faith, sparking mass protests.
 * September 13 – The solar system's largest dwarf planet, designated until now as 2003 UB313, is officially named "Eris"; its satellite is now known as "Dysnomia".
 * September 15 – Spinach contaminated with E. coli kills 2 and poisons over 100 others in 20 states of the United States.
 * September 16 – Five churches are attacked in Palestinian areas following the Pope's comments on Islam.
 * September 17 – Protests start near the Hungarian Parliament.
 * September 19 – Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand declares a state of emergency in Bangkok as members of the Royal Thai Army stage a coup d'état. The army announces the removal of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra from power.
 * September 22 – A Transrapid Maglev train crashes into a maintenance vehicle on a test track in Germany, killing 23 and injuring 10; it is the first recorded fatal accident involving a Maglev.
 * September 22 - Annular solar eclipse
 * September 29 – Gol Flight 1907 (Boeing 737-800) collides with a business jet over the Amazon Rainforest, killing all 155 onboard.

October

 * October 2 – Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 32-yr-old milk-truck driver, kills 5 girls at an Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania before shooting himself.
 * October 6 – A hazardous waste plant near Apex, North Carolina explodes, releasing chlorine gas, and resulting in the evacuation of thousands and the hospitalization of over 100 residents.
 * October 9 – North Korea claims to have conducted its first-ever nuclear test.
 * October 10 – Google buys YouTube for USD $1.65 billion.
 * October 12 – A freak snowstorm blows into Buffalo, New York Leaving over 400,000 without power and killing 13.
 * October 13 – South Korean Ban Ki-moon is elected as the new Secretary-General of the United Nations.
 * October 15 – The UN agrees to sanction North Korea over nuclear testing claims.
 * October 15 – The establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq is declared.
 * October 16 – A magnitude 6.7 earthquake rocks Hawaii, causing property damage, injuries, landslides, power outages, and the closure of Honolulu International Airport. see 2006 Hawaii Earthquake.
 * October 16 – The last American MASH is decommissioned.
 * October 24 – NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft makes its first flyby of Venus (it will be captured into Mercury's orbit on March 18, 2011).
 * October 29 – Aviation Development Company Flight 53 crashes shortly after takeoff in Nigeria killing 96 people.
 * October 30 – Former President of Chile Augusto Pinochet is placed under house arrest for crimes committed at the Villa Grimaldi detention centre.
 * October 30 – An airstrike on a madrasah in Bajaur, Pakistan kills dozens of suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.

November

 * November 2 – No. 5, 1948 by Jackson Pollock becomes the most expensive painting after it was sold privately at $140 million.
 * November 5 – Former President of Iraq Saddam Hussein and 2 of his senior allies are sentenced to death by hanging, after an Iraqi court finds them guilty of crimes against humanity.
 * November 8 – A transit of Mercury occurs.
 * November 9 – Margaret Chan is elected as the Director-General of the World Health Organization.
 * November 12 – The former Soviet republic of South Ossetia holds a referendum on independence from Georgia.
 * November 15 – Al Jazeera launches its English language news channel, Al Jazeera English.
 * November 16 – Rioting in Nukualofa, the capital of Tonga, destroys approx. 80% of the CBD; 8 bodies found and foreign forces requested.
 * November 17 – The PlayStation 3 is released in North America.
 * November 19 – The Wii is released in North America.
 * November 20 – Iran and Syria recognize the government of Iraq, restore diplomatic relations, and call for a peace conference.
 * November 21 – Pierre Amine Gemayel, Lebanon's Minister of Industry, is assassinated in Beirut.
 * November 21 – A gas explosion in the coal mine Halemba in Ruda Slaska, Poland, kills 23 miners approximately 1,000 meters below ground.
 * November 22 – The Kolkata leather factory fire traps and kills 9 in India.
 * November 23 – A series of car bombs and mortar attacks in Sadr City, Baghdad, kill at least 215 people and injure 257 other people.
 * November 30 – Typhoon Durian triggers a massive mudslide and kills at least 720 people in Albay province on the island of Luzon in the Philippines.

December

 * December 1 – Felipe Calderón takes office as President of Mexico.
 * December 1 – The 15th Asian Games start in Doha, Qatar; the closing ceremony takes place on December 15.
 * December 2 – In Rome, about 2 million people, led by opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi, demonstrate against Romano Prodi's government.
 * December 2 – Stéphane Dion is elected the new Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, on the fourth ballot.
 * December 2–19 – 2006 Ipswich murder investigation: The bodies of 5 murdered prostitutes are discovered at different locations near Ipswich in Suffolk, England.
 * December 3 – Ed Stelmach is elected the new Leader of the Progressive Conservatives, Alberta, after the second ballot results, and second choice votes for Ted Morton have been added up. Ed becomes the Premier-designate of Alberta.
 * December 3 – Hugo Chávez is re-elected President of Venezuela.
 * December 3 – Germany's tallest chimney is demolished by explosion at the former Westerholt Power Station.
 * December 5 – The military seizes power in Fiji, in a coup d'état led by Commodore Josaia Voreqe "Frank" Bainimarama.
 * December 7 – Smoking is banned in all Ohio bars, restaurants, workplaces, and other public places.
 * December 9 – The Moscow hospital fire kills 45 people.
 * December 10 – Space Shuttle Mission STS-116: Space Shuttle Discovery lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center on the first night launch since the 2003 loss of Columbia.
 * December 10 – Christer Fuglesang becomes the first Swede in space.
 * December 11 – The Holocaust conference is opened in Tehran, Iran by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
 * December 12 – Peugeot produces their last car at the Ryton Plant, signalling the end of mass car production in a city that was once a major centre of the British motor industry; Coventry.
 * December 13 – The Chinese River Dolphin or Baiji becomes extinct.
 * December 13 – U.S. Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) suffers a stroke during a radio interview.
 * December 14 – U.S. Spy Satellite USA 193, also known as NRO Launch 21 (NROL-21 or simply L-21), is launched and malfunctions soon after.
 * December 15 – Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter successfully flies for the first time.
 * December 15 – An alleged assassination attempt on Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh sparks inter-Palestinian clashes.
 * December 15 – King Jigme Singye Wangchuck of Bhutan abdicates in favour of his son Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, a year earlier than expected.
 * December 15 – The Japanese government passes a bill to upgrade the Japan Defense Agency to a Ministry.
 * December 19 – A Libyan court sentences 5 Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death, for knowingly infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV.
 * December 20 – Somalia: Islamic Courts Union fighters begin attacking the government-held town of Baidoa.
 * December 21 – The death of Saparmurat Niyazov sparks world concern over a possible power vacuum and instability in energy-rich Turkmenistan.
 * December 22 – The Space Shuttle Discovery lands at the Kennedy Space Center, concluding a 2-week mission to the International Space Station.
 * December 24 – Ethiopia admits its troops have intervened in Somalia.
 * December 26 – An oil pipeline explodes in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, killing at least 200 people.
 * December 26 – The Hengchun earthquake in Taiwan kills 2 people, and damages about 15 historical buildings and several undersea cables, disrupting Internet and IDD telecommunication services in Asia.
 * December 29 – War in Somalia: Ethiopian and Transitional government troops capture Mogadishu without resistance.
 * December 30 – Saddam Hussein, former Iraq president, is executed in Baghdad.
 * December 30 – The M/V Senopati Nusantara sinks in Indonesia, causing several hundred casualties.
 * December 30 – The Free State Project completes its "First 1,000" pledge.
 * December 30 – The Basque separatist group ETA sets off a bomb in Madrid Barajas International Airport, killing 2 Ecuadorians.
 * December 31 – At least 11 bombs go off in Bangkok hours before the new year, leaving at least 30 injured.
 * December 31 – The Met Office announces that England has experienced its warmest year since records began in 1659, with an average temperature of 10.82 °C.

January

 * January 1 – Bulgaria and Romania join the European Union.
 * January 1 – South Korea's Ban Ki-moon becomes the new United Nations Secretary-General, replacing Kofi Annan.
 * January 3 – China conducts an anti-terror raid in Xinjiang.
 * January 8 – Russian oil supplies to Poland, Germany, and Ukraine are cut as the Russia-Belarus energy dispute escalates; they are restored 3 days later.
 * January 12 – Comet McNaught, the brightest comet in more than 40 years, makes perihelion.
 * January 13 – The Greek ship Server breaks in half off the Norwegian coast, releasing over 200 tons of crude oil.
 * January 14 – The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement adopts the Red Crystal as a non-religious emblem for use in its overseas operations.
 * January 17 – Protests occur in India and the United Kingdom against the British series of Celebrity Big Brother, after Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O'Meara were allegedly racially abusive towards Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty.
 * January 19 – Israel releases $100 million in frozen assets to President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian National Authority, in order to bolster the president's position.

February

 * February 2 – Chinese President Hu Jintao signs a series of economic deals with Sudan.
 * February 2 – Martti Ahtisaari unveils a United Nations plan for the final status of Kosovo; Serbian leaders denounce the proposal.
 * February 2 – The IPCC publishes its fourth assessment report, having concluded that global climate change is "very likely" to have a predominantly human cause.
 * February 13 – North Korea agrees to shut down its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon by April 14 as a first step towards complete denuclearization, receiving in return energy aid equivalent to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil.
 * February 26 – The International Court of Justice finds Serbia guilty of failing to prevent genocide in the Srebrenica massacre, but clears it of direct responsibility and complicity in the case.
 * February 27 – The Chinese Correction: World stock markets plummet after China and Europe release less-than-expected growth reports.
 * February 28 – The New Horizons space probe makes a gravitational slingshot against Jupiter, which changes its trajectory towards Pluto.

March

 * March 1 – The International Polar Year, a $1.5 billion research program to study both the North Pole and South Pole, is launched in Paris.
 * March 8 – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admits that Israel had planned an attack on Lebanon in the event of kidnapped soldiers on the border, months before Hezbollah carried out its kidnapping.
 * March 23 – Naval forces of Iran's Revolutionary Guard seize Royal Navy personnel in disputed Iran-Iraq waters.
 * March 27 – Prime Minister of Latvia Aigars Kalvitis and Prime minister of Russia Mikhail Fradkov finally sign a border treaty between Latvia and Russia.

April

 * April 3 – Second Orange Revolution: Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko dissolves the Ukrainian Parliament, following defections that increased the majority of his opponents.
 * April 4 – Iran announces it will release the British sailors and marines that they captured on March 23.
 * April 14 – Retired chess champion Garry Kasparov is detained in Moscow for participating in a banned march.
 * April 24 – Gliese 581 c, a potentially habitable Earth-like extrasolar planet, is discovered in the constellation Libra.
 * April 26 – Russians riot in Tallinn, Estonia, about moving the Bronze Soldier; 2 nights of rioting leave 1 dead.

May

 * May 6 – French Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy wins the French presidential election, succeeding incumbent President Jacques Chirac 10 days later.
 * May 16 – The United Nations General Assembly, recognizing that genuine multilingualism promotes unity in diversity and international understanding, proclaims 2008 the International Year of Languages.
 * May 17 – The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Moscow Patriarchate re-unite after 80 years of schism.
 * May 20 – Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum of Dubai makes the largest single charitable donation in modern history, committing €7.41 billion to an educational foundation in the Middle East.

June

 * June 1 – A 2,100-year-old melon is discovered by archaeologists in western Japan.
 * June 5 – NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft makes its second fly-by of Venus en route to Mercury.
 * June 28 – In the aftermath of Greece's worst heatwave in a century, at least 11 people are reported dead from heatstroke, approximately 200 wildfires break out nationwide, and the country's electricity grid nearly collapses due to record breaking demand.

July

 * July 2 – Venus and Saturn are in conjunction, separation 46 arcsecs.
 * July 7 – Live Earth Concerts are held throughout 9 major cities around the world.
 * July 17 – TAM Linhas Aéreas Flight 3054 overruns the runway of Congonhas-São Paulo International Airport and crashes, killing all 186 and others on the ground.
 * July 21 – The final book of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is released and sells over 11 million copies in the first 24 hours, becoming the fastest selling book in history.

August

 * August 3 – Foot and mouth disease is found on a farm at Wanborough, near to Guildford, Surrey. A UK-wide ban on movement of all livestock is put in place the following day.
 * August 4 – The Phoenix spacecraft launches toward the Martian north pole.
 * August 6 – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert arrives in the historic Palestinian town of Jericho, becoming the first Prime Minister of Israel to visit the West Bank or Gaza Strip in more than 7 years. Olmert meets with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
 * August 14 – Multiple suicide bombings kill 572 people in Qahtaniya, northern Iraq.
 * August 15 – An 8.0 earthquake strikes Peru, killing 512 people, injuring more than 1,500, and causing tsunami warnings in the Pacific Ocean.
 * August 17 Vladimir Putin issues a statement, revealing that Russia is to resume the flight exercises of its strategic bombers in remote areas. The flights were suspended in 1991 after the Collapse of the Soviet Union.

September

 * September 2–9 – The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit hosts its 19th annual city meeting in Sydney.
 * September 6 – Operation Orchard: Israeli airplanes strike a suspected nuclear site in Syria.
 * September 14 – The SELENE spacecraft launches. JAXA has called the mission, "the largest lunar mission since the Apollo program."
 * September 16 – One-Two-GO Airlines Flight 269 crashes in Phuket, Thailand, killing 89 passengers and crew.
 * September 20 – The 2007 Universal Forum of Cultures opens in Monterrey, Mexico.

October

 * October 4 – Spanish authorities arrest 22 people associated with the banned Batasuna party, which campaigns for Basque independence, but also has ties to the terrorist group ETA.
 * October 8 – Track and field star Marion Jones surrenders her 5 Olympic medals she won in the 2000 Sydney Games, after admitting to doping.
 * October 14 – Al-habileen/lahij: Four citizens are killed on the 44th anniversary of the revolution against British colonial rule in South Yemen.
 * October 24 – In the space of a few hours, Comet Holmes develops a coma and flares up to half a million times its former brightness, becoming visible to the naked eye. Its coma later becomes larger in volume than the Sun, making it the second comet to do so in 2007 after Comet McNaught.
 * October 28 – The Vatican beatifies 498 Spanish victims of religious persecution from before and during the Spanish Civil War.
 * October 31 – The World Economic Forum releases The Global Competitiveness Report 2007-2008.

November

 * November 3 – President Pervez Musharraf declares a state of emergency in Pakistan.
 * November 5 – The Writers Guild of America goes on a strike that lasts until February 12, 2008.
 * November 6 – A suicide bomber kills at least 50 people in Mazari Sharif, Afghanistan, including 6 members of the National Assembly.
 * November 13 – An explosion hits the south wing of the House of Representatives of the Philippines in Quezon City, north of Manila, killing 4 people, including Basilan Congressman Wahab Akbar, and wounding 6 others.
 * November 14 – High Speed 1 from London to the Channel Tunnel is opened to passengers.
 * November 16 – Over 3,000 people are believed to have died after Cyclone Sidr hits Bangladesh, with the death toll expected to rise.
 * November 18 – The Zasyadko mine disaster in eastern Ukraine claims the lives of 101 miners.

December

 * December 3 – 14 – The United Nations Climate Change Conference is held at Nusa Dua in Bali, Indonesia.
 * December 7 – Uranus' orbit is positioned such that the sun shines directly above its equator (i.e. an equinox).
 * December 8 – The 2007 Africa-EU Summit takes place as European Union and African Union leaders gather in Lisbon, Portugal, for their first joint summit in 7 years. The British and Czech prime ministers boycott the event due to the presence of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
 * December 10 – The United Nations deadline for a negotiated settlement on the future of Kosovo passes without an international agreement.
 * December 19 – Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, is announced as Time magazine's 2007 Person of the Year.
 * December 20 – The Pablo Picasso painting Portrait of Suzanne Bloch, together with Candido Portinari's O Lavrador de Café, is stolen from the São Paulo Museum of Art.
 * December 21 – The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia join the Schengen border-free zone.
 * December 24 – The Nepalese government announces that the country's 240-year-old monarchy will be abolished in 2008 and a new republic will be declared.
 * December 27 – Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated, and at least 20 others are killed by a bomb blast at an election rally in Rawalpindi.
 * December 31 – Over 200 people are killed in Kenya, due to riots over the results of the December 27 presidential election.

January

 * January 1 – Cyprus and Malta adopt the euro.
 * January 1 – A suicide bombing occurs in Zayouna, Baghdad, killing over 25 people during a funeral over the deaths from the preceding attack.
 * January 2 – The price of petroleum hits $100 per barrel for the first time.
 * January 3 – A car bomb detonates, killing at least 4 and injuring 68, in Diyarbakır, Turkey. Police blame Kurdish rebels.
 * January 8 – An attempted assassination of Maldivian president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom is thwarted after a Boy Scout grabs the attacker's knife. The Boy Scout is injured, but after a scuffle police arrest the attacker.
 * January 12 – A Macedonian Army Mil Mi-17 helicopter crashes in thick fog southeast of Skopje, killing all 11 military personnel on board.
 * January 14 – At 19:04:39 UTC, the MESSENGER space probe is at its closest approach during its first flyby of the planet Mercury.
 * January 15 – The Federal Court of Australia orders a Japanese whaling company to stop research whaling within their Exclusive Economic Zone.
 * January 21 – Stock markets around the world plunge amid growing fears of a U.S. recession, fueled by the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis.
 * January 22 – Russia stages the largest naval exercise since the fall of the Soviet Union in the Bay of Biscay. The Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, along with 11 support vessels and 47 long-range bomber aircraft, practises strike tactics off the coast of France and Spain, and test-launches nuclear-capable missiles in foreign waters.


 * January 23 – Polish Air Force EADS CASA C-295 crashes on approach to the 12th Air Base near Mirosławiec. All 20 personnel on board die.
 * January 23 – Thousands of Palestinians cross into Egypt, as the border wall with Gaza in Rafah is blown up by militants.
 * January 24 – A peace deal ends the Kivu war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
 * January 25 – China's worst snowstorm since 1954 kills 133, delays traffic, and causes massive power outages in central and southern parts of the country.
 * January 29 – Iran's judiciary sentences to prison 54 Bahá'í Faith followers for 'anti-regime propaganda'.

February

 * February 2 – Rebels attack the capital of Chad, N'Djamena.
 * February 4 – Iran opens its first space center and launches a rocket into space.
 * February 4 – A Palestinian suicide bomber kills 1 and wounds 13 in a Dimona, Israel shopping center.
 * February 5 – U.S. stock market indices plunge more than 3% after a report shows signs of economic recession in the service sector. The S&P 500 fall 3.2%, The Dow Jones Industrial Average 370 points.
 * February 5–6 – A tornado outbreak, the deadliest in 23 years, kills 58 in the Southern United States.
 * February 7 – STS-122: Space Shuttle Atlantis launches to deliver the European-built Columbus science laboratory to the International Space Station.
 * February 10 – The 2008 Namdaemun fire severely damages Namdaemun, the first National Treasure of South Korea.
 * February 11 – President of East Timor José Ramos-Horta is seriously wounded in an attack on his home by rebel soldiers. Rebel leader Alfredo Reinado is killed by Ramos-Horta's security guards during the attack.
 * February 12 – PDVSA, a state oil company in Venezuela, suspends sales of crude oil to ExxonMobil, in response to a legal challenge by them.
 * February 12 – Bridgestone, under investigation for an alleged price-fixing cartel, uncovers improper payments of at least 150 million Japanese yen to foreign governments and withdraws from the marine hose business.
 * February 13 – Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia delivers a formal apology to the Stolen Generations.
 * February 17 – Kosovo formally declares independence from Serbia, with support from some countries but opposition from others.
 * February 18 – The British government introduces emergency legislation temporarily to nationalize Northern Rock, the 5th largest mortgage bank in the UK, due to the bank's financial crisis.
 * February 18 – A general election is held in Pakistan, delayed from January 8 due to riots in the wake of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Opposition parties, including Bhutto's, take more than half of the seats, while President Pervez Musharraf's party suffers a huge defeat.
 * February 19 – Fidel Castro announces his resignation as President of Cuba, effective February 24.
 * February 20 – The United States Navy destroys a spy satellite containing toxic fuel, by shooting it down with a missile launched from the USS Lake Erie in the Pacific Ocean.
 * February 20 – A total lunar eclipse crosses North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Southwest Asia.
 * February 22 – Former building society Northern Rock is the first bank in Europe to be taken into state control, due to the U.S. subprime mortgage financial crisis.
 * February 22 – No survivors are found after a rescue helicopter discovers the wreckage of Santa Bárbara Airlines Flight 518 just northeast of Mérida, Venezuela. The commercial plane had 46 people on board, including crew.
 * February 24 – Raúl Castro is unanimously elected as President of Cuba by the National Assembly.

March

 * March–April – Rising food and fuel prices trigger riots and unrest in the Third World.
 * March 1 – In Gaza Strip, at least 52 Palestinians and 2 Israeli soldiers are killed in the most intense Israeli air strikes since 2005.
 * March 2 – 2008 Andean diplomatic crisis: Venezuela and Ecuador move troops to the Colombian border, following a Colombian raid against FARC guerrillas inside Ecuador's national territory, in which senior commander Raúl Reyes is killed.
 * March 6 – Eight Israeli civilians are killed and 9 wounded when a Palestinian attacker opens fire at a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem.
 * 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.
 * March 14 – Demonstrations by Tibetan separatists turn violent as rioters target government and Han Chinese-owned buildings.
 * March 15 – A gun factory explosion in Gërdec, Albania kills more than 30. Over the following week, Albania, Kosovo, and some surrounding countries supply and support Gërdec's population with food, blood, etc.
 * March 19 – An exploding star halfway across the visible universe becomes the farthest known object ever visible to the naked eye.
 * March 24 – Bhutan holds its first-ever general elections.
 * March 25 – A 414 square kilometer (160 sq. mi.2) chunk of Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Shelf disintegrates, leaving the entire shelf at risk.
 * March 25 – African Union and Comoros forces invade the rebel-held island of Anjouan.
 * March 29 – Presidential and parliamentary elections are held in Zimbabwe.

April

 * April 8 – Privy Council of Sark dismantles its feudal system to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights. and the first elections under the new law will be held in December 2008 and the new chamber will first convene in January 2009.
 * April 15 – A Hewa Bora Airways DC-9 crashes into a residential area of Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
 * April 17 – Raila Odinga becomes the new Prime Minister of Kenya after the formation of a coalition government, ending the political crisis in Kenya.
 * April 22 – Surgeons at London's Moorfields Eye Hospital perform the first operations using bionic eyes, implanting them into 2 blind patients.
 * April 27 – The Taliban attempts to assassinate Afghan President Hamid Karzai in a military parade in Kabul.
 * April 28 – India sets a world record by sending 10 satellites into orbit in a single launch.
 * April 28 – 71 die in a train crash in Shandong, China.

May

 * May 3 – Over 133,000 in Burma/Myanmar are killed by Cyclone Nargis, the deadliest natural disaster since the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004.
 * May 7 – Dmitry Medvedev takes office as President of Russia, replacing Vladimir Putin.
 * May 8 – Start of armed clashes and fighting in Lebanon.
 * May 11 – Burma/Myanmar holds a constitutional referendum.
 * May 12 – Over 69,000 are killed in central south-west China by the Wenchuan quake, an earthquake measuring 7.9 Moment magnitude scale. The epicenter is 90 kilometers (55 miles) west-northwest of the provincial capital Chengdu, Sichuan province.
 * May 13 – A series of bomb blasts kills at least 63 and injures 216 in Jaipur, India.
 * May 14 – NASA announces the discovery of Supernova remnant G1.9+0.3.
 * May 15 – An oil pipeline explosion in Ijegun, Nigeria kills 100.
 * May 23 – The Union of South American Nations, a supranational union, is created by a union between the Andean Community and Mercosur.
 * May 23 – The International Court of Justice awards Middle Rocks to Malaysia and Pedra Branca to Singapore, ending a 29-year territorial dispute between the 2 countries.
 * May 25 – NASA's Phoenix spacecraft becomes the first to land on the northern polar region of Mars.
 * May 28 – The Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal is established after the Assembly votes overwhelmingly in favor of abolishing the country's 240-year-old monarchy. Girija Prasad Koirala becomes temporary head of state.
 * May 30 – The Convention on Cluster Munitions is adopted in Dublin.

June

 * June 2 – A car bomb explodes outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing at least five.
 * June 8 – In the Akihabara area of Tokyo, Japan, a 25-year-old man stabs seven to death and wounds 10, before being arrested.
 * June 10 – Fire engulfs Sudan Airways Flight 109 after it lands in Khartoum, killing 44.
 * June 11 – The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope is launched.
 * June 11 – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologizes to Canada's First Nations for the Canadian residential school system.
 * June 12 – Ireland votes to reject the Treaty of Lisbon, in the only referendum to be held by a European Union member state on the treaty.
 * June 14 – A 6.9 magnitude earthquake in Iwate Prefecture, Japan, kills 12 and injures more than 400.
 * June 14 – September 14 – Expo 2008 is held in Zaragoza, Spain, with the topic of "Water and sustainable development".
 * June 22 – Typhoon Fengshen hits the Philippines and capsizes the ferry MV Princess of the Stars, leaving hundreds dead or missing.
 * June 27 – President Robert Mugabe is reelected with 85.5% of the vote in the second round of the controversial Zimbabwean presidential election.
 * June 27 – After three decades as the Chairman of Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates steps down from daily duties to concentrate on philanthropy.

July

 * July 2 – Íngrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages are rescued from FARC by Colombian security forces.
 * July 7 – A suicide-bomber drives an explosives-laden automobile into the front gates of the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 58 and injuring over 150.
 * July 7–9 – The 34th G8 summit is held in Tōyako, Hokkaidō, Japan.
 * July 10 – Former Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boškoski is acquitted of all charges, by a UN Tribunal accusing him of war crimes.
 * July 15–20 – World Youth Day takes place in Sydney, Australia. Pope Benedict XVI appears at the event.
 * 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.
 * July 22 – The United Progressive Alliance-led government in India survives a crucial no-confidence vote, based on disagreements between the Indian National Congress and Left Front, over the Indo-US nuclear deal.
 * July 23 – Ram Baran Yadav is sworn in as the first President of Nepal.
 * July 25 – A series of seven bomb blasts rock Bangalore, India, killing two and injuring 20; the next day, a series of bomb blasts in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, kills 45 and injures over 160 people.
 * July 27 – At least 17 are killed and over 154 wounded in 2 blasts in Istanbul.
 * July 28 – At least 48 are dead and over 287 injured after bombs explode in Baghdad and Kirkuk, Iraq.

August

 * August 1 – A total eclipse of the Sun is visible from Canada and extends across northern Greenland, the Arctic, central Russia, Mongolia, and China.
 * August 1 – George Tupou V is crowned as the new King of Tonga, an event that had been delayed for over two years following the 2006 Nuku'alofa riots.
 * August 3 – A stampede at a Hindu temple at Naina Devi in Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh, India kills 162 and injures 400.
 * August 4 – Two members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which had threatened to attack the Beijing Olympics, kill 16 and injure another 16 officers at a police station in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China.
 * August 6 – President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi of Mauritania is deposed in a military coup d'état.
 * August 7 – The 2008 South Ossetia war begins, as Georgia and Russia launch a major offensive inside the separatist region of South Ossetia after days of border skirmishes between the two sides.
 * August 8–24 – The 2008 Summer Olympics take place in Beijing, China.
 * August 15 – Pushpa Kamal Dahal (known as Prachanda) is sworn in as the first Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, after the Nepalese monarchy was abolished in May.
 * August 17 – Michael Phelps surpasses Mark Spitz in Gold Medals won at a single Olympics, winning eight.
 * August 18 – Pervez Musharraf resigns as President of Pakistan, under impeachment pressure from the coalition government.
 * August 19 – Taliban insurgents kill 10 and injure 21 French soldiers in an ambush in Afghanistan.
 * August 19 – A suicide bomber rams a car into an Algerian military academy, killing 43 and injuring 45.
 * August 20 – Spanair Flight 5022, from Madrid to Gran Canaria, skids off the runway and crashes at Barajas Airport with 172 on board. Of them, 154 die and 18 survive.
 * August 21 – At least 60 die following twin suicide bombings outside the Pakistan Ordnance Factories in Wah, Pakistan.
 * August 22 – Pirates hijack German, Iranian, and Japanese cargo ships off the coast of Somalia, in seven such attacks since June 20.
 * August 24 – An aircraft crashes in Guatemala, killing 10, including four Americans on a humanitarian mission.
 * August 24 – Iran Aseman Airlines Flight 6895 crashes upon takeoff near Manas International Airport in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, killing 68.
 * August 26 – Russia unilaterally recognizes the independence of Georgian breakaway republics Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
 * August 26 – September 1 – Hurricane Gustav makes landfall on Louisiana as Category 2 and kills seven in the United States, after making landfall on western Cuba as Category 4, and killing 66 in Haiti, eight in the Dominican Republic, and 11 in Jamaica.
 * August 28 – September 7 – Hurricane Hanna kills seven in the United States, and 529 in Haiti, mostly due to floods and mudslides.

September

 * September 1–14 – Hurricane Ike makes landfall on Texas as Category 2 and kills 27 in the United States, after killing four in Cuba, one in the Dominican Republic, and 75 in Haiti.
 * September 2 – Prime Minister of Japan Yasuo Fukuda resigns, less than a year after taking office following Shinzo Abe's resignation.
 * September 2 – Political crisis in Thailand: Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej of Thailand declares a state of emergency in Bangkok.
 * September 3 – Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani of Pakistan survives an assassination attempt near Islamabad, while on his way to meet British Leader of the Opposition David Cameron.
 * September 3 – President's Dimitris Christofias and Mehmet Ali Talat hold peace talks in Nicosia, aimed at reunifying Cyprus.
 * September 6 – Asif Ali Zardari is elected President of Pakistan by the Electoral College of Pakistan.
 * September 6 – At least eight boulders dislodge from a cliff near Cairo, Egypt, killing at least 90 and burying an estimated 500 people.
 * September 9 – Political crisis in Thailand: The Constitutional Court of Thailand orders Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej to resign, after he is paid for appearing on a television cooking show.
 * 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.
 * September 10 – The 2008 Bandar Abbas earthquake strikes southern Iran, killing 7 and injuring 45 people.
 * September 12 – A Metrolink train collides head-on into a freight train in Los Angeles, California, killing 25 and injuring 130.
 * September 14 – Aeroflot Flight 821 crashes near the city of Perm, Russia, killing all 88 on board.
 * September 15 – Following negotiations, President Robert Mugabe and opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara sign a power-sharing deal, making Tsvangirai the new Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.
 * September 15 – Lehman Brothers files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, laying the catalyst for the Global financial crisis.
 * September 17 – The International Astronomical Union classifies Haumea as the 5th dwarf planet in the Solar System.
 * September 19–25 – Typhoon Hagupit kills 17 in China, eight in the Philippines, one in Taiwan, and 41 in Vietnam.
 * September 20 – A suicide truck bomb explosion destroys the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing at least 60 and injuring 266.
 * September 21 – President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa resigns after accepting a call by the African National Congress.
 * September 24 – The Diet of Japan elects Taro Aso as the new Prime Minister of Japan.
 * September 25 – Kgalema Motlanthe is elected by the National Assembly of South Africa as the President of South Africa, succeeding Thabo Mbeki.
 * September 25 – Shenzhou 7, the third manned Chinese spaceflight and the first with three crew members, is successfully launched. China becomes the third country ever to conduct a spacewalk.
 * September 28 – SpaceX Falcon 1 becomes the world's first privately developed space launch vehicle to successfully make orbit.
 * September 30 – A Jodhpur temple stampede in western India kills over 224 people, and injures 400.

October

 * 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.
 * October 6 – NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft makes its second of three flybys of Mercury, decreasing the velocity for orbital insertion on March 18, 2011.
 * October 6 – An earthquake measuring 6.6 magnitude kills at least 65 in Kyrgyzstan.
 * October 7 – Global financial crisis: Russia agrees to provide Iceland with a four-billion-euro loan.
 * October 7 – The meteoroid 2008 TC3 impacts Earth, becoming the first such object to be discovered prior to impact.
 * October 9 – Global financial crisis: Following a major banking and financial crisis in Iceland, the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority takes control of the three largest banks in the country: Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki,  and Glitnir.
 * October 17 – The United Nations General Assembly elects Turkey, Austria, Japan, Uganda, and Mexico to two-year terms on the Security Council.
 * October 21 – The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is officially inaugurated. It is a collaboration of over 10,000 scientists and engineers from over 100 countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories.
 * October 22 – The Indian Space Research Organisation successfully launches theChandrayaan-1 spacecraft on a lunar exploration mission.
 * October 29 – Global financial crisis: Hungary's currency and stock markets rise on the news that it will receive an international economic bailout package worth $25 billion from the IMF, European Union, and World Bank.
 * October 29 – Delta Air Lines merges with Northwest Airlines, forming the world's largest commercial carrier.

November

 * November 4 – United States presidential election, 2008: Barack Obama is elected the 44th President of the United States and Joe Biden is elected the 47th Vice President. Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to be elected to the office.
 * November 6 – King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck of Bhutan is crowned, having ascended to the throne in 2006.
 * November 7 – The 2008 Pétionville school collapse kills at least 92 in Pétionville, Haiti.
 * November 8 – An accident aboard Russian submarine K-152 Nerpa kills 20.
 * November 11 – The RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 departs on her last voyage from Southampton, UK to Dubai, UAE. She will become a floating hotel at Palm Jumeirah.
 * November 14 – STS-126: The Space Shuttle Endeavour uses the MPLM Leonardo to deliver experiment and storage racks to the International Space Station. There will be only three more launches of Space Shuttle Endeavour after this mission.
 * November 19 – Claudia Castillo of Spain becomes the first person to have a successful trachea transplant using a tissue-engineered organ.
 * November 20 – The 2008 Prairie meteoroid falls over Canada.
 * November 22 – 23 – The APEC Peru 2008 Summit is held in Lima.
 * November 24 – The 2008 Santa Catarina floods in Santa Catarina, Brazil kill 126 and force the evacuation of over 78,000 people.
 * November 25 – Greenland holds a referendum for increased autonomy from Denmark. The vote is over 75% in favour.
 * November 25 – Political crisis in Thailand: Protesters from the People's Alliance for Democracy party storm into Suvarnabhumi Airport and block flights from taking off. More protesters seize control of Don Mueang Airport the following day.
 * November 25 – A car bomb in St. Petersburg, Russia, kills three people and injures one.
 * November 26 – November 29 – A series of terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India by Pakistan-based Islamic militants kills 195, and injures at least 250.
 * November 27 – The longest serving Ocean Liner in history, QE2 is retired from service.
 * November 29 – Riots in Jos, Nigeria kill 381, and injure at least 300.

December

 * December 1 – A triangular conjunction formed by a new Moon, Venus and Jupiter is a prominent object in the evening sky.
 * December 2 – Political crisis in Thailand: After weeks of opposition-led protests, the Constitutional Court of Thailand dissolves the governing People's Power Party and two coalition member parties, and bans leaders of the parties, including Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, from politics for five years. As such, Wongsawat promptly resigns and is replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Chaovarat Chanweerakul as caretaker Prime Minister.
 * December 3 – The Convention on Cluster Munitions opens for signature in Oslo.
 * December 4 – Political crisis in Canada: Governor General Michaëlle Jean grants the request of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to prorogue Parliament until January 26, 2009, averting a motion of no-confidence by the new opposition coalition led by the Leader of the Opposition Stéphane Dion, and the New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton, with Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe as a coalition partner.
 * December 5 – Human remains found in 1991 are identified as Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, using DNA analysis.
 * December 6 – Riots spread across Greece after a 15-year-old boy is shot dead by a special guard of the Greek Police.
 * 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.
 * December 12 – Switzerland becomes the 25th European country to join the Schengen Agreement, whereby cross-border passport checks will be abolished.
 * December 12 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. The Moon appears to be 14% bigger and 30% brighter than the year's other full moons. The next time these two events coincide will be in 2016.
 * December 16 – Ruins of an ancient Wari city are discovered in northern Peru.
 * December 18 – The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda convicts Théoneste Bagosora and two other senior Rwandan army officers of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes and sentences them to life imprisonment.
 * December 21 – Gwadar port, Pakistan becomes fully operational.
 * December 23 – A military coup d'état is announced in Guinea shortly after the death of long-time President Lansana Conté.
 * December 27 – Israel initiates a series of airstrikes followed by an invasion in Gaza Strip, killing at least 1300 (including at least 416 children) and wounding over 2,700.
 * December 29 – Bangladesh holds its general elections after two years of political unrest over the interim government.
 * December 31 – An extra leap second (23:59:60) is added to end the year. The last time this occurred was in 2005.

January

 * January 1 – Austria, Japan, Mexico, Turkey, and Uganda assume their seats on the United Nations Security Council.
 * January 1 – The Czech Republic takes over the presidency of the Council of the European Union from France.
 * January 1 – Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, becomes the American Capital of Culture and Vilnius and Linz become the European Capitals of Culture.
 * January 1 – Slovakia adopts the euro as its national currency, replacing the Slovak koruna.
 * January 3 – Israel launches a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip as the Gaza War enters its second week.
 * January 7 – Russia shuts off all gas supplies to Europe through Ukraine. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin publicly endorses the move and urges greater international involvement in the energy dispute.
 * January 13 – Ethiopian military forces begin pulling out of Somalia, where they have tried to maintain order for nearly two years.
 * January 17 – Israel announces a unilateral ceasefire in the Gaza War. It comes into effect the following day, on which Hamas declares a ceasefire of its own.
 * January 20 – Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th, and first African American, President of the United States.
 * January 21 – Israel completes its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Intermittent air strikes by both sides of the preceding war continue in the weeks to follow.
 * January 22 – Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda is captured by Rwandan forces after crossing over the border into Rwanda.
 * January 26 – The first trial at the International Criminal Court is held. Former Union of Congolese Patriots leader Thomas Lubanga is accused of training child soldiers to kill, pillage, and rape.
 * January 26 – The Icelandic government and banking system collapse; Prime Minister Geir Haarde immediately resigns.

February

 * February 1 – Patriarch Kirill I of Moscow is enthroned as the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.
 * February 1 – Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir is appointed as the new Prime Minister of Iceland, becoming the world's first openly lesbian head of government.
 * February 7 – The deadliest bushfires in Australian history begin; they kill 173, injure 500 more, and leave 7,500 homeless. The fires come after Melbourne records the highest-ever temperature (46.4°C, 115°F) of any capital city in Australia. The majority of the fires are ignited by either fallen or clashing power lines or deliberately lit.
 * February 8 – The Taliban releases a video of Polish geologist Piotr Stańczak, whom they had abducted a few months earlier, being beheaded. It is the first killing of a Western hostage in Pakistan since American journalist Daniel Pearl was executed in 2002.
 * February 10 – A Russian and an American satellite collide over Siberia, creating a large amount of space debris.
 * February 11 – Morgan Tsvangirai is sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Zimbabwe following the power-sharing deal with President Robert Mugabe signed in September, 2008.
 * February 17 – The JEM rebel group in Darfur, Sudan sign a pact with the Sudanese government, planning a ceasefire within the next three months.
 * February 26 – Former Serbian president Milan Milutinović is acquitted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia regarding war crimes during the Kosovo War.

March

 * March 2 – The President of Guinea-Bissau, João Bernardo Vieira, is assassinated during an armed attack on his residence in Bissau.
 * March 3 – Gunmen attack a bus carrying Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore, Pakistan, killing eight people and injuring several others.
 * March 4 – The International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Al-Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC since its establishment in 2002.
 * March 7 – NASA's Kepler Mission, a space photometer which will search for extrasolar planets in the Milky Way galaxy, is launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, USA.
 * March 17 – The President of Madagascar, Marc Ravalomanana, is overthrown in a coup d'état, following a month of rallies in Antananarivo. The military appoints opposition leader Andry Rajoelina as the new president.

April

 * April 1 – Albania and Croatia join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
 * April 2 – The second G-20 summit, involving state leaders rather than the usual finance ministers, meets in London. Its main focus is an ongoing global financial crisis.
 * April 3–4 – The 21st NATO Summit is held, 60 years after the founding of the organization. Former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen is appointed as the new Secretary General of NATO.
 * April 5 – North Korea launches the Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2 rocket, prompting an emergency meeting of&mdash;but no official reaction from&mdash;the United Nations Security Council.
 * April 6 – A 6.3 magnitude earthquake strikes near L'Aquila, Italy, killing nearly 300 and injuring more than 1,500.
 * April 7 – Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori is sentenced to 25 years in prison for ordering killings and kidnappings by security forces.
 * April 10 – A political crisis begins in Fiji when President Josefa Iloilo suspends the nation's Constitution, dismisses all judges and constitutional appointees and assumes all governance in the country after the Court of Appeal rules that the government of Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama is illegal.
 * April 11–12 – The Fourth East Asia Summit is postponed after Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva declares a state of emergency in Bangkok and surrounding areas.
 * April 17 – Thirty-four heads of state and government meet in Port of Spain, Trinidad for the 5th Summit of the Americas.
 * April 18 – Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-American journalist, is sentenced to eight years in prison for espionage by an Iranian court. She is released the following month, after an appeals court reduces and suspends her sentence.
 * April 21 – UNESCO launches The World Digital Library.
 * April 24 – The World Health Organization expresses concern at the spread of influenza from Mexico and the United States to other countries. International cases and resulting deaths are confirmed.
 * April 29 – Amidst Russia's effort to improve relations with NATO and with the West in general, NATO expels two Russian diplomats from NATO headquarters in Brussels over a spy scandal in Estonia. Russia's Foreign Ministry criticises the expulsions.

May

 * May 18 – The third C40 Large Cities Climate Leadership Group meets in Seoul.
 * May 18 – Following more than a quarter-century of fighting, the Sri Lankan Civil War ends with the total military defeat of the LTTE.
 * May 23 – Former President of South Korea Roh Moo-hyun, under investigation for alleged bribery during his presidential term, commits suicide.
 * May 25 – North Korea announces that it has conducted a second successful nuclear test in the province of North Hamgyong. The United Nations Security Council condemns the reported test.

June

 * June 1 – Air France Flight 447, en route from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Paris, crashes into the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 228 on board.
 * June 11 – The outbreak of the H1N1 influenza strain, commonly referred to as "swine flu", is deemed a global pandemic, becoming the first condition since the Hong Kong flu of 1967–1968 to receive this designation.
 * June 13 – Following the reelection of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, supporters of defeated candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi accuse the government of fraud, and launch a series of sustained protests.
 * June 18 – NASA launches the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter/LCROSS probes to the Moon, the first American lunar mission since Lunar Prospector in 1998.
 * June 20 – The death of Neda Agha-Soltan, an Iranian student shot during a protest, is captured on what soon becomes a viral video that helps to turn Neda into an international symbol of the civil unrest following the presidential election.
 * June 21 – As a step toward total independence from the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland assumes control over its law enforcement, judicial affairs, and natural resources. Greenlandic becomes the official language.
 * June 25 – The death of American entertainer Michael Jackson triggers an outpouring of worldwide grief. Online, reactions to the event cripple several major websites and services, as the abundance of people accessing the web addresses pushes internet traffic to potentially unprecedented and historic levels.
 * June 28 – The Supreme Court of Honduras orders the arrest and exile of President Manuel Zelaya, claiming he was violating the nation's constitution by holding a referendum to stay in power. The coup d'état is condemned by the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and multiple nations around the world.
 * June 30 – Yemenia Flight 626 crashes off the coast of Moroni, Comoros, killing all but one of the 153 passengers and crew.

July

 * July 1 – Sweden assumes the presidency of the European Union.
 * July 4 – The Organization of American States suspends Honduras due to the country's recent political crisis after its refusal to reinstate President Zelaya.
 * July 5 – Over 150 are killed when a few thousand ethnic Uyghurs target local Han Chinese during major rioting in Ürümqi, Xinjiang.
 * July 7 – A public memorial service is held for musician Michael Jackson. It is regarded as one of the most prominent funerals of all time.
 * July 15 – Caspian Airlines Flight 7908 crashes near Qazvin, Iran, killing all 168 on board.
 * July 16 – Iceland's national parliament, the Althingi, votes to pursue joining the EU.
 * July 22 – The longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, lasting up to 6 minutes and 38.8 seconds, occurs over parts of Asia and the Pacific Ocean.

August

 * August 3 – Bolivia becomes the first South American country to declare the right of indigenous people to govern themselves.
 * August 4 – North Korean leader Kim Jong-il pardons two American journalists, who had been arrested and imprisoned for illegal entry earlier in the year, after former U.S. President Bob Johnson meets with Kim in North Korea.
 * August 7 – Typhoon Morakot hits Taiwan, killing 500 and stranding more than 1,000 via the worst flooding on the island in half a century.
 * August 20 – Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, imprisoned for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, is released by the Scottish government on compassionate grounds as he has terminal prostate cancer. He returns to his native Libya.

September

 * September 25 – At the G-20 Pittsburgh summit, world leaders announce that the G-20 will assume greater leverage over the world economy, replacing the role of the G-8, in an effort to prevent another financial crisis like that in 2008.
 * September 26 – Typhoon Ketsana begins to cause record amounts of rainfall in Manila, Philippines, leading to the declaration of a "state of calamity" in 25 provinces.
 * September 28 – At least 157 demonstrators are killed in a clash with the Guinean military.
 * September 29 – An 8.3-magnitude earthquake triggers a tsunami near the Samoan Islands. Many communities and harbors in Samoa and American Samoa are destroyed, and at least 189 are killed.
 * September 30 – A 7.6-magnitude earthquake strikes just off the coast of Sumatra, killing around 1,000 in Indonesia.

October

 * October 2 – The International Olympic Committee awards the 2016 Summer Olympics to Rio de Janeiro.
 * October 2 – Ireland holds a second referendum on the EU's Lisbon Treaty. The amendment is approved by the Irish electorate,   having been rejected in the Lisbon I referendum held in June 2008.
 * October 20 – European astronomers discover 32 exoplanets.

November

 * November 3 – The Czech Republic becomes the final member-state of the European Union to sign the Treaty of Lisbon, thereby permitting that document's initiation into European law.
 * November 3 – The Prime Minister of Belgium, Herman Van Rompuy, is designated the first permanent President of the European Council, a position he takes up on 1 December 2009.
 * November 13 – Having analyzed the data from the LCROSS lunar impact, NASA announces that it has found a "significant" quantity of water in the Moon's Cabeus crater.
 * November 20 – CERN restarts the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland; they had shut it down on September 19, 2008.
 * November 23 – In the Philippines, at least 57 are abducted and killed in an election-related massacre in the province of Maguindanao. This appears to be the deadliest attack on journalists in recent history.
 * November 27 – Dubai requests a debt deferment following its massive renovation and development projects, as well as the late 2000s economic crisis. The announcement causes global stock markets to drop.

December

 * December 1 – The Treaty of Lisbon comes into force.
 * December 7 – December 18 – The UNFCCC's United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 conference is held in Copenhagen, Denmark.
 * December 16 – Astronomers discover GJ1214b, the first-known exoplanet on which water could exist.

January

 * January 1 – Spain takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from Sweden.
 * January 1 – A suicide bombing occurs at a volleyball game in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 95, and injuring over 100.
 * January 4 – The tallest man-made structure to date, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is officially opened.
 * January 8 – The Togo national football team is involved in an attack in Angola, and as a result withdraws from the Africa Cup of Nations.
 * January 12 – A 7.0-magnitude earthquake occurs in Haiti, devastating the nation's capital, Port-au-Prince. The confirmed death toll is over 230,000, making the earthquake one of the deadliest on record.
 * January 15 – The longest annular solar eclipse of the 3rd millennium occurs.
 * January 25 – Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 crashes into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after take-off from Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport, killing all 90 people on-board.

February

 * February 3 – The sculpture L'Homme qui marche I by Alberto Giacometti sells in London for £65 million (US$103.7 million), setting a new world record for a work of art sold at auction.
 * February 12–28 – The 2010 Winter Olympics are held in Vancouver and Whistler, Canada.
 * February 18 – The President of Niger, Tandja Mamadou, is overthrown after a group of soldiers storms the presidential palace. Later in the day, the rebels announce on television the formation of a ruling junta, the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy, headed by chef d'escadron Salou Djibo.
 * February 27 – An 8.8-magnitude earthquake occurs in Chile, triggering a tsunami over the Pacific and killing 497. One of the largest earthquakes in recorded history, this rare megathrust earthquake probably shifts Earth's axis and slightly shortens its days.

March

 * March 16 – The Kasubi Tombs, Uganda's only cultural World Heritage Site, are destroyed by fire.

April

 * April 7 – Amid fierce rioting, Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev flees Bishkek to the southern city of Osh. The opposition seizes control of the government, placing former foreign minister Roza Otunbayeva as the head of the interim government.
 * April 10 – The President of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, is among 96 killed when their airplane crashes in western Russia.
 * April 13 – A 6.9-magnitude earthquake occurs in Qinghai, China, killing at least 2,000 and injuring more than 10,000.
 * April 14 – Volcanic ash from one of several eruptions beneath Eyjafjallajökull, a glacier in Iceland, begins to disrupt air traffic across northern and western Europe.
 * April 27 – Standard & Poor's downgrades Greece's sovereign credit rating to junk, four days after the country's government requests the activation of a €45-billion EU–IMF bailout. Stock markets worldwide and the Euro currency decline in response to this announcement,  furthering a European sovereign debt crisis.

May

 * May 1 – October 31 – The 2010 World Expo is held in Shanghai.
 * May 2 – The Eurozone and the International Monetary Fund agree to a €110 billion bailout package for Greece. The package involves sharp Greek austerity measures.
 * May 7 – Scientists conducting the Neanderthal genome project announce that they have sequenced enough of the Neanderthal genome to prove that Neanderthals (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis/Homo neanderthalensis) and humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) may have interbred. The two hominids were close genetic relatives, although the relationship and closeness is still undetermined.
 * May 12 – Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 crashes at runway at Tripoli International Airport in Libya killing 103 on board leaving only one survivor.