2006

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2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. It corresponds to the years 5766-5767 in the Hebrew Calendar and 1426-1427 in the Islamic Calendar. It has been designated:

• The International Year of Deserts and Desertification
• The Rembrandt Year, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the birth of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Netherlands' greatest 17th-century painter.
• The Mozart Year, celebrating the 250th birthday of the Austrian composer Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
• The Tesla Year, celebrating the 150th birthday of the world known electrotechnician Nikola Tesla.
• The International Asperger's Year, marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Hans Asperger, discoverer of Asperger's Syndrome.

Predicted and scheduled events

January

• January 1 -
  • Revaluation of the Azerbaijani manat.
  • 30 cities across the Canadian province of Quebec will be reconstituted, as the result of a referendum held June 20, 2004.
  • Deadline for inclusion of trans-fatty acid data on US retail food label nutritional information.
• January 3 - Bob O'Connor is to be inaugurated into his first term as the mayor of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
• January 10 - Islamic festival of Eid ul-Adha.
• January 15 -
  • First round of the Finnish presidential election
  • Second round of the Chile presidential elections
• January 16 - Mordechai Vanunu to appear in Israeli court, charged with meeting foreigners.
• January 17 - NASA will launch the New Horizons spacecraft on its first mission to Pluto.
• January 23 - 39th Canadian federal election
• January 25 - Palestinians vote in the Parliamentary Elections.
• January 29 -
  • Second round (if needed) of the Finnish presidential election.
• January 31 - Anticipated retirement date of Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve of the United States.

February

• February 5 - Super Bowl XL played at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan.
• February 10 to 26 - Torino 2006 Winter Olympics
• February 12 - International Day of Prayer for Autism and Asperger's Syndrome.
• February 16 - Kobe Airport, a controversial offshore airport in Kobe, Japan, is scheduled to open for airline service.
• February 20 to 21 - Solidarity conference in Bil'in in Palestine.

March

• March -
  • Elections in Israel.
  • Al Jazeera will launch its new satellite service, Al Jazeera International, in Europe, Asia, and North America.
• March 18 - South Australia to vote in a Parliamentary State Election.
• March 20 - Spring begins officially in the northern hemisphere, autumn in the southern hemisphere.
• March 28 - Probable date for Israeli Parliamentary elections.
• March 29 -
  • Total solar eclipse (Brazil, Mid Atlantic ocean, Sahara, Turkey, Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia)
  • Attack Submarines USS-Lapon to start to be deactivated. Los Angeles class submarines USS Indianapolis, USS-Birmingham, USS-New York City and USS-Atlanta also begin to be deactivated.
• March 31 - The BBC World Service is to end broadcasts in Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Kazakh, Polish, Slovak, Slovenian and Thai by this date.

April-June

• April 2 Former Connecticut governor John Rowland is scheduled to be released from the federal prison in Loretto, Pennsylvania.
• April 6 - Peruvians will elect the successor of Alejandro Toledo in the Peruvian national election, 2006
• April 7 - EU citizens are now able to register .eu domain names, which replaced the old eu.int TLD on December 7 2005.
• April 14 to April 17 - Breakpoint 2006 will take place in Bingen.
• May 3 - Unofficial launch date for Space Shuttle STS-121 Discovery (ISS-18) Pad B, (ISS-18-ULF1.1: Return-To-Flight Test, MPLM, Logistics)
• May 4 - Local elections to be held across England.

July-September

• July 1 -
  • Electronic equipment imported to or sold in the European Union will have to be lead free soldered, to comply with the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive.
• July 2 - Presidential election of Mexico.
• July 29 to August 5 - World Congress of Esperanto in Florence, Italy.
• August 13 to August 18 - The XVI International AIDS Conference will be held in Toronto, Canada.
• August 14 to August 25 - The 26th General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Prague, Czech Republic.
• September 17 - Sweden holds elections for the Riksdag.
• September 22 - Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown

October-December

• October 1 - Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur begins at sundown
• October 2 - General elections in Brazil. Federal sphere:Presidential elections, full renewal of the House of Representatives and renewal of one third of the Brazilian Senate (one of each state's three seats); State sphere: Gubernatorial elections, renewal of the State Legislative body (State Assembly) in all states.
• October 24 - Islamic festival of Eid ul-Fitr
• October 24 - NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft to Mercury makes the first of two Venus flybys.
• October 26 - Hindu festival of Diwali
• November 7 - US Mid-term Election which includes:
  • all 435 seats of the US House of Representatives (outlook)
  • 33 of the 100 seats in the US Senate (outlook)
  • Gubernatorial elections in 36 of the 50 states (outlook)
  • Many other state-wide offices in those states such as attorneys general and state auditors
• November 8 - Transit of Mercury.
• November 11- Gerald Ford, if still living, becomes the oldest former US president
• December 25 - Christian Holiday of Christmas
• December 31 - Islamic festival of Eid ul-Adha

Unknown/undecided dates

• NATO Summit 2006 will take place in Latvia.
• White House proposed Plebiscite to decide whether Puerto Rico will mantain its territorial status or change to another status (to be decided then in other referendum)
• The third Chinese manned space mission Shenzhou 7 is scheduled with the first Chinese space walk ever to be performed.
• Airbus plans to release into service Airbus A380, the biggest airliner in the world.
• The European Space Agency plans to launch the KEO space time capsule
• The Republic of Ireland is expected to hold a referendum on the European Constitution.
• Manuel Noriega becomes eligible for parole.
• The Osaka Outer Loop Line and the eighth line of the Osaka City Subway are scheduled to open in Osaka, Japan.
• Wembley Stadium expected to open after renovations.
• World oil production peaks this year according to "The Peak Of World Oil Production And The Road To The Olduvai Gorge" by Richard C. Duncan.
• General election in Italy, probably for the first half of the year.
• The new transit centre for Trolley Bus operations in Vancouver, Canada opens.
• Estonia will adopt Euro as its currency rather than Estonian Kroon
• A bridge linking Savannakhet, Laos, over the Mekong, to Mukdahan, Thailand is expected to be completed late in the year.
• Series 2 of the British science fiction series Doctor Who will begin airing somewhere during the Spring.
• Thomas Harris will release his fourth book in the Hannibal series.

2006 in Fiction

• March 28 to March 29 - The events of the Doctor Who episodes Aliens of London and World War Three take place.
• September - The events of Doctor Who episode Boom Town take place.
• December 24 to December 25 - The events of Doctor Who episode The Christmas Invasion take place.
• DC Comics will begin its "One Year Later" comic storyline, rewriting most of their back stock of unused characters in the aftermath of the previous storyline, Infinite Crisis.
• The events of the third season of the Transformers cartoon take place.
• The events of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory take place.
• Marvel Comics has promised five 'tentpole events' over the course of the year: Marvel Annihilation, Marvel: The Illuminati, and three others.