Twenty-First Century History
The third millennium actually started at about 21h00 on 31 December 2000, or even more correctly, on 31 December 1995. See the history of the calendar
2000
Final Peanut comic strip published.
Largest ever corporate merger as AOL buys Time-Warner for $162 billion.
Vladimir Putin elected President of Russia.
George W Bush defeats Al Gore to become US President.
The Tate Modern opens in London.
Summer Olympics is held in Sydney, Australia.
Reality TV introduced in the form of Survivor, based on Swedish game show Operation Robinson.
2001
NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft lands on asteroid 433 Eros, a first.
Dale Earnhardt killed during Daytona 500 race.
32-year old Erik Weihenmayer of Boulder, Colorado, becomes first blind person to reach summit of Mount Everest.
Wikipedia started.
On September 11, Al Qaida terrorists fly jet aircraft into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, killing around 3,000 people. The US launch against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Act of the War on Terrorism is signed by President Bush.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the movie, debuts.
2002
Euro banknotes and coins issued.
Winter Olympics held in Salt Lake City, Utah.
New order of insects, Mantophasmatodea, announced.
SARS outbreak, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, starts in China and spreads globally, killing 774.
East Timor becomes independent state.
Brazil wins Football World Cup.
The planetoid Quaoar discovered.
SpaceX founded by Elon Musk.
Jimmy Carter awarded Nobel Peace prize.

2003
Last signal from Pioneer 10, in January 23, at distance of 7.6 billion miles (12.23 billion kilometers) from the sun.
Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates over Texas upon reentry, killing all seven astronauts aboard.
Coalition forces launch against Iraq, ending Sadam Hussein’s rule.
Last old-style Volkswagen Beetle produced in Puebla, Mexico.
Arnold Schwarzenegger voted Governor of California.
Concorde makes its last commercial flight.
Dan Hanebrink invents the Ice Bike.
England wins the Rugby Union World Cup defeating Australia 20-17.
Earthquake in Bam, Iran on December 27, kills more than 26,000 people.
2004
NASA’s Mer-A (Spirit) lands on Mars.
Britney Spears’s marriage to Jason Allen Alexander annulled after 55 hours.
Cruise liner Queen Mary 2 launched.
Facebook founded.
Kyushu Shinkansen high-speed rail line opens in Japan.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban released.
Summer Olympics held in Athens, Greece.
Largest Tsunami disaster ever recorded, killing 225,000 people in 14 countries.
2005
Pope John Paul II dies April, 2. German cardinal Joseph Ratzinger elected as 265th pontiff, Benedict XVI.
First successful partial face transplant, France.
July 7 London terrorist bombings.
Hurricane Katrina strikes the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama coasts.
Earthquake kills about 80,000 people in Kashmir.
YouTube launched.
Reddit founded by Aaron Swartz, Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian.
2006
Montenegro gains independence and becomes the 192nd member of the UN.
Wikileaks founded.
Australian Dr Ian Frazer develops vaccine for cervical cancer.
Winter Olympics held in Torino, Italy.
Football World Cup won by Italy.
Microsoft launches Vista operating system.
80% of world land surface has coverage by cellular networks for mobile phone use.
Mandarin passes English as the most prevalent language on the Internet.
Twitter launches.
Amazon launches the Unbox video-on-demand service, developing it into Prime Video.
2007
Romania and Bulgaria join the EU.
Australia win Cricket World Cup.
The New Seven Wonders of the World announced. Apple launches the iPhone.
July 1, nationwide public smoking ban introduced in England.
Homer Simpson movie released.
Abel Gonzales Jr. introduces Deep-Fried Coca-Cola.
State of celebriphilians (persons who desire romantic relationship with celebrity) more evident than ever on online video channel YouTube.
2008
Beijing Olympics.
Kosovo declares independence.
NASA WMAP progam declares the universe is flat.
Worldwide recession hits West worst.
Rising food and fuel prices trigger riots and unrest in Third World countries.
Bank giants Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual fail.
Spotify music streaming launched in Sweden.
Earthquake measuring 7.9 strikes Sichuan, China, killing more than 85,000 people.
Summer Olympics held in Beijing, China.
Satoshi Nakamoto publishes “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System“
2009
Barack Hussein Obama inaugurated as first black (black father, white mother) US President.
Obama receives Noble Peace Prize.
Barbie dolls turns 50.
Microsoft launches Windows 7.
Uber ride-hailing service launched.
World leaders meet in Copenhagen to discuss global warming.
2010
Google launches Nexus One cell phone.
Record cold weather in many countries.
One of the deadliest earthquakes on record hits Haiti on January 12.
Apple launches the iPad.
Massive deep sea oil leak in Gulf of Mexico – British Petroleum held responsible (see list of largest oil spills).
Spain wins Football World Cup.
2011
Earthquake of 9.0 magnitude hits Japan in March 11, triggering 32 ft (10 m) tsunami, killing more than 12,000 people and causing partial melt-down of Fukushima nuclear reactor north of Tokyo – 7.1 magnitude earthquake on April 7 worsens catastrophe.
Apple launches iPad2.
Arab Spring.
Syrian Civil War erupts.
Facebook reaches 700 million membership mark.
New Zealand beat France 8 – 7 for the Rugby World Cup title.
MySpace, which was bought for $580m in 2005 is sold for $35m.
2012
Mayan and other calendars end. (See more End-of-world predictions).
Summer Olympics held in London, UK.
Hurricane Sandy, the largest Atlantic hurricane on record, devastates parts of the Caribbean and Northeastern United States.
Felix Baumgartner breaks Joseph Kittinger’s long-standing record for the highest skydive, leaping from a balloon at 39km above New Mexico.
The European Union wins the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize.
Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak spreads globally, killing almost 1,000 people.
Higgs boson particle, proposed by Peter Higgs in 1964, confirmed.
The World Health Organization concludes that diesel exhaust causes cancer.
Apple I computer sells for a record $374,500.
Gangnam Style by PSY becomes first video to be viewed 1 billion times on YouTube.
Warmest year on record for the United States.
Voyager 1 spacecraft, launched in 1977, reaches the end of our solar system and enters interstellar space.

2013
Pope Benedict XVI resigns (becoming the first to do so since Gregory XII in 1415); Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, an Argentinian, becomes the 266th Supreme Pontiff, as Pope Francis.
Meteor explodes over Chelyabinsk, Russia, injuring 1,489 people and damaging over 4,300 buildings.
Ebola virus endemic in West Africa.
Two Chechnya Islamist brothers explode two bombs at the Boston Marathon, killing 3 and injuring 264.
CIA employee Edward Snowden leaks classified United States government information about mass surveillance on companies and private citizens.
Croatia becomes the 28th member of the European Union.
Microsoft releases Windows 8.1.
2014
XXII Olympic Winter Games are held in Sochi, Russia.
Crimean referendum chooses union with Russia, which formally annexes Crimea.
Catholic Church canonizes Popes John XXIII and John Paul II.
Sunni militants establish the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (aka ISIS, ISIL or Daesh), declaring it a caliphate.
Germany wins FIFA World Cup hosted by Brazil.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, a Boeing 777, shot down over eastern Ukraine by missile, killing all 298 passengers.
Scottish independence referendum, 55.3% vote against independence from the UK.
American computer scientist Alan Eustace sets a world record highest and longest free fall jump from 135,908 feet (41.425 km) over Roswell, New Mexico.
One World Trade Center, tallest building in the Western Hemisphere (7th tallest in the world), opens in New York City, replacing the seven buildings destroyed in the 9/11/01 terrorist attack.
2015
Eritrean Catholic Church is founded.
European migrant crisis; millions of illegal migrants from the mainly Middle East and African Muslim countries enter European countries after announcement by German Chancellor Angelo Merkel that Europe will be open to everyone. Recommended reading: Strange Death of Europe by Douglas K Murray.
Islamic terrorist organization Boko Haram massacres more than 2,000 people in Baga, Nigeria.
Two Al-Qaeda terrorists kill 12 people and injure 11 more at the Paris headquarters of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
United Nations Security Council adopts Resolution 2199 to combat terrorism.
Swine flu, Influenza A virus subtype H1N1, outbreak in India kills more than 2,000 people.
Ancient city sites of Nimrud, Hatra and Dur-Sharrukin in Iraq demolished by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake strikes Nepal, causing 8,857 deaths in Nepal, 130 in India, 27 in China and 4 in Bangladesh, total 9,018 deaths.
Greece becomes the first advanced economy to miss a payment to the International Monetary Fund in the 71-year history of the IMF.
Les Femmes d’Alger by Pablo Picasso sells for $179.3 million while the L’Homme au doigt (Man pointing) sculpture by Alberto Giacometti sells for US$141.3 million at Christie’s auction in New York.
British doctors implant world’s first bionic eyes. (First trials success in 2008.)
New Horizons close flyby of Pluto, first spacecraft in history to visit the distant world.
Microsoft launches Windows 10.
Convention on Cluster Munitions adopted.
Hurricane Patricia becomes the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere, with winds of 215 mph and a pressure of 872 mbar.
Multiple Islamic terrorist attacks (ISIL) in Paris, France, kill 130 people.
2016
Donald Trump elected as US President.
Brazil hosts Summer Olympics.
Joint Declaration of Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill, known as the Havana Declaration, an Ecumenical Declaration between leaders of the Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches and first such meeting since their schism in 1054.
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reveals the Panama Papers, exposing the rogue offshore finance industry.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and South Korean President Park Geun-hye impeached.
Brexit, Britain votes to leave the European Union.
2017
SpaceX conducts the world’s first reflight of an orbital class rocket.
Computers around the world hit by a large-scale WannaCry ransomware cyber attack.
Islamic terrorist bomb at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, kills 22 people and injures more than 500.
Montenegro becomes 29th member of NATO.
Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci sells for US$450 million at Christie’s in New York.
Catalonia declares independence from Spain (after 92% Yes vote in referendum) but the Catalan Republic is not recognized by Spain or any other nation.
Facebook has more than 2 billion users.
The Xi Jinping Thought, a set of communist and Marxist policies and ideals (known as Xism), by Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping is incorporated into the constitution of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and ICIJ publish the Paradise Papers, 13.4 million documents exposing the offshore financial activities of celebrities, politicians and business leaders.
New species (the third) of orangutan is identified in South Tapanuli, Sumatra, Indonesia.

2018
Philadelphia Eagles beat New England Patriots 41 – 33 to become Super Bowl champion.
Winter Olympics held in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
FIFA World Cup hosted by Russia, won by France.
Voyager 2, launched in 1977, enters interstellar space.
United States and Israel withdraws from from UNESCO.
China’s government grants Xi Jinping the status of “President for Life.”
World’s last male northern white rhinoceros dies in Kenya.
Saudi Arabia allows women to drive.
Longest total lunar eclipse of 21st century on July 27 lasts 102 minutes and 57.3 seconds, with an umbral eclipse magnitude of 1.60868.
Apple Inc becomes world’s first public company with $1 trillion market capitalization.
Earthquake with magnitude 7.5 strikess Sulawesi, Indonesia, killing more than 4,000 people and inuring more than 10,000.
Chinese biophysics researcher He Jiankui creates the first human genetically-edited babies, twin girls Lulu and Nana.
The Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge is the world’s longest sea crossing bridge.
Yellow Vest Movement begins in France to protest the disproportionate burden of the government’s tax reforms on the working and middle classes.
2019
England won on a Super Boundary Count of 9 against New Zealand in the Cricket World Cup final.
First ever image of a black hole – located in the center of the Messier 87 galaxy – is observed from the Event Horizon Telescope project.
Embassy of the United States in Israel moves from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Islamic terrorists kill 259 and injure over 500 over Easter at eight locations in Sri Lanka.
Avengers: Endgame becomes the highest grossing movie of all time, more than $2.7 billion.
Women’s World Cup, held in France, is won by the United States.
July 2019 is hottest month on record globally, at 0.95 °C (1.71 °F) above the 20th-century average.
Japan withdraws from International Whaling Commission and resumes killing whales.
Last Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the line in Puebla, Mexico.
Uncontrolled fires destroy vast areas and kill millions of animals in Australia.
Boris Johnson becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Thomas Cook, one of the world’s oldest travel firms, goes under.
Leader of the ISIL, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, killed by U.S. special forces in Idlib province, Syria.
Google launches Stadia cloud gaming service.
Christian persecution reaches alarming levels.
COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China spreads worldwide.
2020
COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak becomes a pandemic, causing global stock market crash.
Brexit – the United Kingdom withdraws from the European Union.
A fast radio burst is detected from the Magnetar SGR 1935+2154, the first ever detected inside the Milky Way, and the first to be linked to a known source.
Summer Olympics held in Tokyo, Japan.
2021
Windows 11 released.
Atari VCS released.
United States forces withdraws from Afghanistan after 20 years, leaving behind billions of dollars worth of military equipment and the Taliban in control.
First powered flight on another planet made by NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter – the “Mars helicopter.”
2022
Winter Olympics hosted in Beijing, China.
Ukraine-Russia conflict.
Luhansk People’s Republic and Donetsk People’s Republic declares independence from Ukraine.
United States economy dips into recession.
Twitter Files released.
2060 End of world according to Isaac Newton.
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