2007
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2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD (or CE) era. It is the 7th year in the 21st century and in the 3rd millennium.
It has been designated International Polar Year[1], International Rumi Year, International Heliophysical Year[2] and Year of the Dolphin [3].
Most of 2007, starting February 18, overlaps with the Year of the Pig in the Chinese calendar (dates until February 17 are in the Year of the Dog). The next year of the pig will start in 2019.
Events
January
- January 1 - Bulgaria and Romania join the European Union.
- January 1 - Slovenia adopts the Euro as its official currency, replacing the tolar.
- January 1 - South Korea's Ban Ki-moon becomes the new UN Secretary-General, replacing Kofi Annan.
- January 1 - Adam Air Flight 574, a routine domestic flight in Indonesia, disappears – debris is found ten days later, but the aircraft remains missing.
- January 1 - Angola joins OPEC.
- January 1 - War in Somalia: Fighters of the Islamic Courts Union abandon their last stronghold in Kismayo and flee for the Kenyan border.
- January 3 - Former U.S. president Gerald Ford is buried in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
- January 3 - China conducts an anti-terror raid in Xinjiang.
- January 4 - The 110th United States Congress is sworn in. Nancy Pelosi is elected Speaker of the House, by a vote of 233-202. She is the first woman ever to occupy this position.
- January 5 - War in Somalia: The first shots are fired in the battle for control of the border town of Ras Kamboni.
- January 5 - BC Place's domed roof collapses in Vancouver.
- January 7 - Stanisław Wielgus, the newly appointed Archbishop of Warsaw, resigns after it is revealed that he cooperated with the former communist regime's secret police.
- January 8 - Lotte World in Seoul, South Korea, the world's largest indoor theme park, has been closed indefinitely due to structural damage.
- January 8 - Russian oil supplies to Poland, Germany, and Ukraine are cut as the Russia-Belarus energy dispute escalates – restored three days later.
- January 9 - The 2007 MacWorld Expo opens in San Francisco. Apple Computer unveils the iPhone, a mobile phone/iPod hybrid.
- January 9 - War in Somalia: U.S. planes conduct air strikes against suspected terrorists, possibly killing senior Al Qaeda operative Fazul Abdullah Mohammed.
- January 9 - An AerianTur-M Antonov An-26 crashes in Balad, Iraq. The Islamic Army in Iraq claims to have shot it down.
- January 10 - U.S. President George W. Bush announces a plan to surge 21,500 additional troops into Iraq.
- January 11 - In Bangladesh, a state of emergency is declared by caretaker President Iajuddin Ahmed, following weeks of violent protests preceding upcoming parliamentary elections.
- January 11 - World soccer superstar David Beckham announces that he will leave Real Madrid to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy of the MLS.
- January 11 - Vietnam joins World Trade Organization as its 150th member.
- January 11 - China tests a ground-based ballistic missile that destroys one of its own weather satellites, the Fengyun, in space, drawing criticisms from other countries.
- January 12 - An Argentine judge issues a warrant for the arrest of former President Isabel Martínez de Perón in connection with the disappearance of a human rights worker in 1976.
- January 12 - The US embassy in Athens is attacked with a low range missile, causing minimal damage and no injuries.
- 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 officially adopts the Red Crystal as a non-religious emblem for use in its overseas operations.
- January 14 - Nazanin Fatehi, a nineteen year old Iranian girl previously sentenced to death for killing a man she claims tried to rape her is exonerated, as her re-trial comes to an end.
- January 15 - The Sentosa Express monorail opens in Singapore.
- January 15 - Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former Iraqi intelligence chief and half-brother of Saddam Hussein, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former chief judge of the Revolutionary Court, are executed by hanging in Iraq.
- January 17 - Hurricane force winds from storm Kyrill claim at least forty lives in western Europe
- January 17 - Protests in India and the United Kingdom against the British series of Celebrity Big Brother after Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O'Meara are alleged to be racially abusive towards Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty.
- January 18 - Comet McNaught, the brightest comet to appear in over forty years, becomes visible over the Southern Hemisphere.
- January 19 - Israel releases 100 million in frozen assets to President Abbas of Palestine in order to bolster the president's position.
- January 22 - A bombing in a market in Baghdad, Iraq, kills 88 people.
- January 24 - The Israeli Ministry of Justice announces that the President of Israel, Moshe Katsav is to be charged with rape and abuse of power.
- January 25 - The President of Israel, Moshe Katsav, takes a temporary leave of absence to protest his innocence.
- January 27 - Thousands of anti-Iraq War protesters converge on the National Mall in Washington, D.C..
- January 28 - A battle between insurgents and U.S.-backed Iraqi troops kills 300 suspected terrorists in Najaf, Iraq.
- January 29 - A suicide bomber kills three people in a bakery in Eilat, Israel.
- January 30 - Windows Vista, Microsoft's newest NT-based operating system, is released world-wide to consumers.
- January 31 - The Parliament of Venezuela gives President Hugo Chavez the power to rule by decree for eighteen months.
- January 31 - Creditors of Delta Air Lines officially reject US Airways hostile takeover bid.
- January 31 - The scare occurs in Boston when devices used in a guerrilla marketing campaign for a film are mistaken for improvised explosive devices.
- January 31 - Lord Levy, a UK Labour Party fundraiser, is re-arrested for conspiracy in relation to the 'cash for peerages' investigation.
February
- February 1 - British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, questioned for a second time in the 'cash for peerages' probe.
- February 2 - An unseasonal tornado in central Florida kills at least 20 people.
- February 2 - A policeman is killed in the Catania football clashes in Italy and 71 people are hopitalized.
- February 2 - Palestinian factional violence: Hamas and its rival Fatah renew their truce after violence breaks out following the initial ceasefire.
- February 2 - Chinese President Hu Jintao signs a series of economic deals with Sudan.
- February 2 - War in Somalia: Eight people are killed in a mortar attack in Somalia's capital Mogadishu.
- February 2 - Martti Ahtisaari unveils a United Nations plan for the final status of Kosovo; Serbian leaders denounced the proposal.
- February 2 - The IPCG publishes its fourth assessment report, concluding that global climate change is "very likely" to have a predominantly human cause.
- February 3 - The deadly H5N1 strain of Bird Flu found at a Bernard Matthews turkey farm in Suffolk.
- February 3 - State of Emergency declared in Boliva after 'El Nino'-like flooding.
- February 3 - Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi cancels all football matches in Italy whilst an investigation into riots on February 2 begins.
- February 3 - Five people killed and 40 injured in a series of car bombs in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk.
- February 3 - A truck bombing in a crowded Baghdad market kills at least 135 people and injures a further 339 others.
- February 4 - The Indianapolis Colts defeat the Chicago Bears 29–17 in Super Bowl XLI, played at Dolphin Stadium, Miami.
Scheduled events
February
- February 11 - Referendum for the legalization of abortion takes place in Portugal.
- February 11 - The 49th Annual Grammy Awards will take place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
- February 16-February 18 - The annual NBA All-Star Weekend takes place in Las Vegas, Nevada
- February 18 - Chinese New Year: The Year of the Pig begins, as does the numeric year 4705.
- February 18 - The 49th running of the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway, NASCAR's biggest race.
- February 25 - The 79th Academy Awards will take place at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.
- February 28 - The New Horizons space probe will make a gravitational slingshot against Jupiter to change its trajectory towards Pluto.
March
- March 3-March 4 - Total lunar eclipse.
- March 4 - Parliamentary elections take place in Estonia.
- March 11 - Daylight saving time in most of the United States and Canada will begin, three to four weeks ahead of the previous schedule, in accordance with the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
- March 11-April 28 - The 2007 Cricket World Cup will be held in the West Indies.
- March 14 - Local number portability begins in Canada.
- March 15 - March 21 - CeBIT 2007 takes place in Hannover (Germany).
- March 17 - The 2007 American Le Mans Season begins with the 12 Hours of Sebring
- March 18 - The 2007 Formula One season will begin in Melbourne, Australia with the Australian Grand Prix.
- March 18 - A parliamentary election will take place in Finland.
- March 19 - Partial solar eclipse.
- March 23 - Sony's Playstation 3 will be released in Europe, Australia, the Middle East, Africa and New Zealand.
- March 24 - A legislative election will take place in the Australian state of New South Wales.
- March 27 - The Republic of Ireland is expected to hold a general election
April
- April 1-Wrestlemania 23 is schedueled at Ford Field.
- April 1 - Smoking in work places and most public places will be banned in Denmark
- April 2 - Smoking in public and work places will be banned in Wales.
- April 14 - The 2007 Sir Arthur Clarke Awards, known as the "Space Oscars", will be presented.
- April 16 - Elections to be held in Nigeria.
- April 22 - The first round of the French presidential election of 2007 will take place
- April 23 - Bogotá, Colombia, begins its term as World Book Capital.
- April 26 - Jamestown 2007, the 400th anniversary of the establishment of the first English settlement of the modern-day United States at Jamestown, Virginia will be celebrated.
- April 30 - Smoking in public and work places will be outlawed in Northern Ireland.
May
- May 3 - There will be parliamentary and local government elections in Scotland.
- May 3 - There will be an assembly election in Wales.
- May 3 - There will be local government elections in England.
- May 6 - If no candidate has secured over half the votes in the French Presidential Election, then a runoff between the top two candidates will be held on this date.
- May 10 - Semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 in Helsinki, Finland will take place. 28 countries will take part.
- May 12 - Final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 in Helsinki, Finland, will take place. 24 countries will take part, including 10 countries from the semi-final.
- May 12 - A general election to the Alþingi, the parliament of Iceland, will take place.
- May 12 - May 13 - Virginia will commemorate the 400th anniversiry of the settlement of Jamestown
- May 13 - The European Parliament election will take place in Romania.
- May 14 - Legislative and local elections in the Philippines also known as Philippine Midterm Elections.
- May 16-May 20 - The European Festival of Youth Choirs will be held in Basel, Switzerland.
- May 17 - French President Jacques Chirac must hand over power to the winner of the French presidential election by this date.
- May 18 - The 4th annual Personal Democracy Forum will be held in New York City at Pace University.
- May 19 - The 126th FA Cup Final will be held, the first at the new Wembley Stadium.
- May 19 - The 23rd annual United States National Science Olympiad tournament will be held in Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas.
- May 23 - The UEFA Champions League 2006-07 season final will be held in the Olympic Stadium in Athens, Greece.
- May 25 - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is released (see May 25).
- May 25 - Scheduled prison release of Andrew Golden, one of two gunmen in the Jonesboro massacre.
- May 27 - Autonomical and local elections in all the Spanish Autonomous Communities except Galicia, Andalusia, the Basque Country and Catalonia.
- May 28-June 2 - The Urdd National Eisteddfod will be held in Carmarthenshire, South Wales
- May 31 - A calendar Blue moon will occur in the Western Hemisphere and parts of the Eastern Hemisphere.
June
- June - Apple intends to release the iPhone
- June 1 - the World Series of Poker begins its 55 tournament schedule at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada
- June 5 - NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft will make its second flyby of Venus en route to Mercury.
- June 6-June 8 - The 33rd G8 summit will take place in Heiligendamm, Germany.
- June 6-June 24 - The ninth edition of the CONCACAF Gold Cup will be held in the United States.
- June 7 - Bob Barker retires from the game show The Price is Right after 35 years and 50 years in television.
- June 10 - The first round of a legislative election and a general election will be held in France and Belgium respectively.
- June 17 - The second round of the legislative election in France will take place.
- June 20 - NASA's Dawn spacecraft is scheduled to be launched.
- June 27 - July 15 - The Copa América 2007 association football tournament will take place in Venezuela.
- June 28 - Start of the Manchester International Festival
- June 30 - A calendar Blue moon will occur in most of the Eastern Hemisphere.
July
- July - The refurbished Millenium Dome, now called The O2 will reopen in London.
- July 1 - Smoking in public and work places is banned in England.
- July 1 - Hong Kong, which was returned to the Chinese Government from the United Kingdom in 1997, will be celebrating its 10th anniversary of its Special Administrative Region Establishment.
- July 1 - Russia will be composed of 85 federal subjects instead of 86 as Koryakia will be merged into the Kamchatka Oblast per a 2005 referendum.
- July 4 - The host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics will be announced during the 119th International Olympic Committee Session in Guatemala City, Guatemala. The three candidates cities are Sochi, Salzburg and PyeongChang.
- July 7-July 29 - The 2007 Tour de France will take place; the grand départ will be from London.
- July 7 - The New Seven Wonders of the World are set to be revealed in a ceremony in Portugal.
- July 13 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film) released (see July 21).
- The 15th Pan Am Games will open in Rio de Janeiro and last through July 29.
- July 21 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be released (see July 13).
- July 22 - An election will determine 121 of the 242 seats in the Japanese House of Councillors.
- July 27 to August 8 - The 21st World Scout Jamboree will take place in Chelmsford, Essex, England.
August
- August 3-August 5 - The Wikimania conference will be held at Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China.
- August 4-August 11 - The National Eisteddfod of Wales will be held at Mold, Flintshire, Wales.
- August 4-August 11 - The 92nd Universal Congress of Esperanto in Yokohama, Japan
- August 9-August 11 - The Emerging Information Technology Conference will be held in Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey.
- August 24-September 2 - The 2007 World Championships in Athletics will be held at Nagai Stadium in Osaka, Japan.
- August 28 - Total lunar eclipse.
- August 30-September 3 - The 65th World Science Fiction Convention will take place in Yokohama, Japan.
- August 31 - Finland plans to completely cease analog television broadcasts.
September
- September 2 - A general election in Guatemala will elect the president, vice-president, congressmen, municipal mayors and representatives to Parlacen.
- September 22-October 7 - The Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany will be held.
- September 8 - The 2007 Rugby World Cup begins.
- September 8-September 9 - The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation will host its annual city meeting in Sydney.
- September 9 - Manuel Noriega may be paroled by Bureau of Prisons
- September 10 - The FIFA Women's World Cup 2007 begins.
- September 11 - Partial solar eclipse.
- September 23-September 28 - Labour Party Conferences in Bournemouth at which the newly elected party leader will address delegates for the first time as Prime Minister.
- September 29 - The Australian Football League Grand Final will be held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. This will be the 111th Grand Final in VFL/AFL history.
October
- October - An election in Pakistan is due.
- October 1 - The minimum age for buying tobacco products will rise from 16 to 18 across England and Wales.
- October 1 - Dawn Tarnofsky-Ostroff, the new american network UPN
- October 4 - An election in the Canadian province of Ontario will take place.
- October 13 - Elections will be held for all Local Government in New Zealand.
- October 23 - the 2007 World Series of Major League Baseball between the American League winner and the National League winner is expected to begin.
- October 27 - An election in Argentina will elect the President and members of the National Congress.
November
- November - Parliamentary elections will be held in Croatia
- November - The Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator and collider at CERN in France and Switzerland, is scheduled to be switched on.
- November 4 - General Elections will be held in Turkey.
- November 4 - Daylight saving time in the United States and most of Canada will end, one week later than the previous schedule, in accordance with the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
- November 14 - The Channel Tunnel Rail Link from London to the Channel Tunnel is expected to be completed.
- November 23 - 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification Group Seeding in Durban, South Africa
December
- December 8 - The 5th Junior Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
- December 19 - A presidential election will take place in South Korea.
- December 21 - If Queen Elizabeth II (1926 - ) lives to this date she will become the oldest reigning monarch in both British and the Commonwealth Realms' history, surpassing King George III (1738 - 1820) and Queen Victoria (1819 - 1901), both of whom died before the age of 82.
- December 31 - By this date, there will be four million household robots in use worldwide, according to the United Nations, as reported in the Reader's Digest, January 2007.
Unknown dates
- The current British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is expected to announce in March his date of leaving office. His successor, most likely Gordon Brown, will be decided in a leadership election. John McDonnell, the left-wing backbencher is the only other candidate for the position thus far. A race for the office of Deputy Prime Minister looks to be more of a 'competition', with Harriet Harman, Peter Hain, Hilary Benn, Jon Cruddas and Alan Johnson already in the race, as well as Hazel Blears and Jack Straw being speculated to enter the competition. There is a very slight possibility that Brown may announce a snap election if he becomes the Prime Minister.
- Wembley Stadium, the National football stadium of England is expected to be completed
- India's 10th Five Year Plan comes to an end.
- Uranus' orbit will be positioned such that the Sun shines directly above its equator.
- The Andean Community and Mercosur will fully integrate into the South American Community of Nations.
- A presidential election will take place in Kenya.
- A legislative election will most certainly take place in Australia.
- Most candidates seeking their party's nomination in the 2008 United States presidential election will declare their candidacies and start actively campaigning.
- The Hidden Imam will appear this year, according to Iranian President Ahmadinejad.
- The Seventeenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China is expected to take place.
Deaths
January
- January 2 - Teddy Kollek, Austrian-born mayor of Jerusalem (b. 1911)
- January 4 - Marais Viljoen, State President of South Africa (b. 1915)
- January 5 - Momofuku Ando, Japanese inventor (b. 1910)
- January 7 - Bobby Hamilton, American race car driver (b. 1957)
- January 8 - Iwao Takamoto, Japanese animator (b. 1925)
- January 8 - Yvonne de Carlo, American actress (b. 1922).
- January 10 - Carlo Ponti, Italian film producer (b. 1912)
- January 11 - Robert Anton Wilson, American author and conspiracy researcher (b. 1932)
- January 15 - Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Iraqi politician (b. 1951)
- January 15 - Awad Hamed al-Bandar, Iraqi judge (b. 1945)
- January 15 - Bo Yibo, Chinese politician and one of the Eight Immortals of Communist Party of China (b. 1908)
- January 16 - Benny Parsons, American race-car driver and television personality (b. 1941)
- January 17 - Art Buchwald, American humorist (b.1925)
- January 19 - Hrant Dink, Armenian-Turkish editor, journalist and columnist (b. 1954)
- January 19 - Denny Doherty, Canadian musician and member of The Mamas and the Papas (b. 1940)
- January 19 - Scott Bigelow, American Pro Wrestler (b. 1961)
- January 22 - Abbé Pierre, French Catholic priest, founder of the Emmaüs charity movement (b. 1912)
- January 22 - Carlos Olivier, Venezuelan actor (b. 1952)
- January 27 - Gump Worsley, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1929)
- January 28 - Hsu Wei Lun, Taiwanese actress (b. 1978)
- January 29 - Barbaro, American thoroughbred racehorse (b. 2003; euthanized)
- January 30 - Sidney Sheldon, bestselling American author and movie screenwriter (b. 1917)
- January 31 - Kirka Babitzin, Finnish singer (b. 1950)
- January 31 - Lee Bergere, American actor (b. 1924)
- January 31 - Molly Ivins, American columnist (b. 1944)
February
- February 3 - Pedro Knight, Cuban-American musician, husband of legendary singer Celia Cruz (b. 1921)
- February 3 - Billy Henderson, former singer from U.S Band "The Spinners" (b. 1939)
References to 2007 in fiction
Computer and video games
- Mega Man: Dr. Thomas Light is awarded the Nobel Prize for the creation of the Robot Master.
- Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2 (2004): The second Korean War begins.
- Set in 2007:
- Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001): Solid Snake boards a vessel (Discovery) in Manhattan to photograph the prototype Metal Gear RAY on August 5.
- Act of War: Direct Action (2005)
- Battlefield 2 (2005)
- Duke Nukem 3D (1996): Specifically, sometime in December.
- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield (2003)
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (2005)
- Outcast (game) (1999)
- Airforce Delta supposedly begins in 2007, as the game dates the year XX07, and the war that happens in the game (starting in XX05 or 2005) ends a few months or even a year later.
Films
- Films set in 2007:
- Paycheck (2003)
- The Jacket (2005)
- Death of a President (2006): United States President George W. Bush is assassinated on October 19.
- Double Dragon (1994)
- Good Burger (1997)
Literature
- The Forever War (1975): some events take place in 2007
- The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein (1951): Events take place in 2007, beginning on July 12.
Television and video series
- The Simpsons: In the 2000 episode "Insane Clown Poppy," Homer and Bart blow up Santa's Little Helper's dog house; the new doghouse is expected to be completed by January 2007.
- Dead Ernest (1980): Ernest (played by Andrew Sachs), is scheduled to die by God in 2007, in bed in Lyme Regis, Dorset, England.
- Macross Zero (2002): The VF-0 variable fighter is tested and events take place in 2007.
- Odyssey 5 (2002): Earth is destroyed on August 7. The minds of the surviving crew of the Space Shuttle Odyssey are sent back in time by a being known as The Seeker to prevent the destruction.
- Daria: In the episode That Was Then, This is Dumb, Jane Lane tells Jesse Moreno that aliens will take over civilization on April 1 of this year.
- Set in 2007:
- Doctor Who: The episodes School Reunion, Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel (aired 2006) take place between January 30 and February 2, the latter two in an alternate reality. Army of Ghosts and Doomsday likely take place later this year. The Runaway Bride (Doctor Who) was set in Christmas 2007.
- Wild Palms (1993)
Media franchises
- .hack - The ALTIMIT OS operating system is released, alongside the MMORPG The World.