Timeline of the 21st century

For other timelines of modern history, see Timelines of modern history. For future timelines, see Timelines of the future.

This is a timeline of the 21st century.

2000s

2001

• September 11 attacks: Al-Qaeda terrorists crash planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and The Pentagon in Washington, DC. A third plane is downed in the outskirts of Stonycreek Township, PA. Nearly 3,000 people die in the attacks.
• Massive earthquakes hit the western state of Gujarat, India, leaving at least 30,000 dead.
• The War on Terror is declared by President Bush, in response to 9/11.
• The United States invades Afghanistan and topples the Taliban regime.Armed insurgents continue to fight.
• Wikipedia founded.
• African Union founded.
• During economic crisis in Argentina government effectively froze all bank accounts for twelve months which led to riots and President de la Rúa's resignation from office.
• President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines impeached.
• Steve Jobs introduces the first iPod

2002

• 2002 Bali bombings.
• Riots and mass killings in the Indian state of Gujarat leave 1044 dead.
• Israel starts Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank in response to a wave of Palestinian suicide attacks.
• Construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier begins.
• Chechen rebels seize theatre in Moscow.
• America demands Iraq allow unfettered access to weapons inspectors.
• Guantanamo Bay detention camp is established. Algerian Civil War ends.
• Beltway sniper attacks.
• Independence of East Timor.
• First Ivorian Civil War begins.
• Brazil win the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Korea & Japan

2003

• The United States leads a coalition invasion of Iraq and topples Saddam Hussein, triggering worldwide protests. Armed insurgency continues throughout the country.
• War in Darfur begins.
• The Human Genome Project is completed.
• Second Congo War ends with more than 5 million dead.
• Second Liberian Civil War ends.
• Space Shuttle Columbia is destroyed on re-entry.
• Rose Revolution in Georgia

2004

• Enlargement of NATO and the European Union incorporates most of former Eastern Bloc.
• Facebook formed by Mark Zuckerberg.
• Union of South American Nations formed.
• Madrid train bombings.
• Orange Revolution in Ukraine.
• Beslan school hostage crisis.
• Boxing Day Tsunami occurs in Indian Ocean, leading to the deaths of 230,000.
• 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.

2005

• IRA end military campaign in Northern Ireland.
• 7/7 attacks on London Underground.
• Angela Merkel becomes Germany's first woman Chancellor.
• Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan.
• Second Intifada ends.
• Israel withdraws from Gaza.
• Cedar Revolution in Lebanon triggered by the assassination of Rafic Hariri.
• Second Sudanese Civil War ends.
• Hurricane Katrina kills 1,836 people in the Gulf of Mexico (particularly in New Orleans, Louisiana).
• 80,000 are killed in an earthquake in Kashmir.
• The Kyoto Protocol comes into effect.
• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad becomes President of Iran.
• Benedict XVI becomes Pope.
• Michael E. Brown discovers Eris.
• YouTube formed by Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.

2006

• Independence of Montenegro.
• 2006 Lebanon War.
• Mumbai bombings.
• Comprehensive Peace Accord ends the Nepalese Civil War.
• Ellen Johnson Sirleaf becomes President of Liberia, and thus Africa's first elected female head of state.
• The International Astronomical Union creates the first formal definition of a planet, and excludes Pluto from the list.
• Execution of Saddam Hussein.
• The Baiji, the Yangtze river dolphin, becomes functionally extinct.

2007

• Anti-government protests in Myanmar crushed by ruling junta.
• Spike in food prices and subprime crisis help trigger global recession.
• Assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Gordon Brown becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• First Ivorian Civil War ends.
• Introduction of iPhone.
• Virginia Tech shooting.

2008

• Stock markets plunge around the world.
• End of Monarchy in Nepal.
• Barack Obama is elected as President of the United States.
• Cyclone Nargis kills 133,000 in Myanmar. Gaza War begins.
• 2008 South Ossetia war.
• Kosovo declares independence, to mixed reaction.
• Battle of Basra - Iraqi forces crack down on Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi forces in Basra and Sadr City.
• 2008 Mumbai attacks.
• The Large Hadron Collider is completed as the world's largest and most powerful particle collider.

2009

• Gaza War ends; Gaza blockade continues.
• Sri Lankan Civil War ends.
• Election protests begin in Iran.
• Second Chechen War ends.
• Boko Haram rebellion begins in Nigeria.
• Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world's tallest skyscraper, is completed.
• Great Recession officially ends.
• Formation of BRICS economic bloc.
• Treaty of Lisbon ratified.

2010s

2010

• David Cameron becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• Benigno Aquino III is elected as the 15th President of the Philippines.
• A 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti kills 230,000.
• The threat of Greece defaulting on its debts triggers the European sovereign debt crisis and Republic of Ireland's financial crisis.
• The largest oil spill in US history occurs in the Gulf of Mexico.
• North Korea shells the island of Yeonpyeong.
• Aung San Suu Kyi is released from house arrest.
• 2010 Moscow Metro bombings.
• Arab Spring triggered by self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi on December 17, 2010 in Tunisia.
• 2010 Kyrgyzstani revolution.
• 2010 Nigerien coup d'état.
• The President of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, is among 96 killed when their airplane crashes in Smolensk on April 10.
• The Burj Khalifa located in Dubai opened to the public and stood as the tallest structure in the world, standing at 829.8 m (2,722 ft).

2011

• Independence of South Sudan.
• Arab Spring: revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya follow, as well as uprisings in Yemen and Bahrain, and protests in several other Arab countries.
• Syrian civil war begins.
• Second Ivorian Civil War.
• Occupy movement inspires worldwide protests.
• News International phone hacking scandal.
• A 9.0 earthquake in Japan triggers a tsunami and the meltdown of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.
• Second Ivorian Civil War ends with the arrest of former president Laurent Gbagbo.
• Iraq War ends.
• Riots flare across England.
• Bombings occur In Russia and Somalia.
• World population reaches 7 billion.
• Floods in Pakistan, Thailand and the Philippines kill roughly 2500 people.

2012

• Northern Mali conflict, the MNLA declares Azawad an independent state.
• Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh steps down.
• 2012 Benghazi attack leads to the death of US ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
• Shenouda III, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, departs; Tawadros II succeeds him.
• The Higgs boson is discovered.
• Vladimir Putin is elected president of Russia for the third time.
• Hurricane Sandy kills 209 people in North America, while Typhoon Bopha kills over 1,600 in the Philippines.
• Skydiver Felix Baumgartner becomes the first person to break the sound barrier without a vehicle.
• Conflict begins in the Central African Republic.
• UN Climate Change Conference agrees to extend the Kyoto Protocol until 2020.
• Israel launches Operation Pillar of Defense against the Palestinian-governed Gaza Strip.
• 2012 Guinea-Bissau coup d'état.
• The US rover, Curiosity, takes a selfie on Mars
• Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
• 2012 Aurora shooting.
• Costa Concordia disaster.

2013

• The French military intervenes in the Northern Mali conflict.
• Chelyabinsk meteor.
• Pope Benedict XVI resigns and Pope Francis becomes Pope.
• Terrorist attacks occur in Boston and Nairobi.
• The Rana Plaza collapses in Bangladesh.
• Edward Snowden releases classified documents concerning mass surveillance by the NSA.
• President of Egypt Mohamed Morsi is deposed by the military in a coup d'état.
• Croatia becomes a member of the European Union.
• The Euromaidan protest begins in Ukraine.
• A chemical attack in Ghouta, Syria is blamed on President Bashar al-Assad.
• Typhoon Haiyan kills nearly 6,150 people in the Philippines and Vietnam.
• Conflict begins in South Sudan. Uruguay becomes the first country to fully legalize cannabis.
• End of 2012–2013 Cypriot financial crisis.
• Boston Marathon bombings.

2014

• The worst Ebola epidemic in recorded history occurs in West Africa, infecting nearly 30,000 people and resulting in the deaths of 11,000+.
• Euromaidan protest in Ukraine sparks a revolution and the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych, leading to Russia's annexation of Crimea and the War in Donbass.
• Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappears from radar while en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8. There were 239 people on board.
• A coup d'état in Thailand overthrows the caretaker government.
• King Juan Carlos I of Spain abdicates; his son becomes King Felipe VI.
• Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 crashes into the Java Sea, while Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 is shot down over Ukraine and Air Algérie Flight 5017 is downed in Mali.
• Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan kill over 130 students in Pakistan.
• Israel launches an assault on the Gaza Strip in response to tit-for-tat murder-kidnappings, leading to the deaths of 71 Israelis and 2100 Palestinians.
• ISIS begins its offensive in northern Iraq, leading to intervention in Iraq and Syria by a US-led coalition.
• Second Libyan Civil War begins.
• The Rosetta spacecraft's Philae probe becomes the first to successfully land on a comet.

2015

• Five former Soviet Union countries form the Eurasian Economic Union.
• Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris.
• Boko Haram perpetrates a massacre of over 2000 people in Baga, Nigeria, and allies itself with ISIL.
• Al-Shabaab perpetrates a a mass shooting in Kenya, killing 148.
• Houthis overthrow the government in Yemen, triggering a military response by Saudi Arabia.
• A series of earthquakes in the Himalayas kills over 10,000 people.
• ISIL claims responsibility for the Kobanî massacre in Syria, the Sousse attacks in Tunisia, a mosque bombing in Kuwait, the Suruç bombing in Turkey, multiple bombings in Beirut and a massacre in Paris, as well as the bombing of a Russian Airliner over Egypt. They also inspire a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California.
• Turkey and Russia intervene in the Syrian Civil War.
• The heads of China and Taiwan meet for the first time, while the United States and Cuba resume diplomatic relations.
• 195 nations agree to lower carbon emissions.
• Liquid water is found on Mars.
• First close-up images of Ceres and Pluto.
• November 2015 Paris attacks.
• Charleston church shooting.
• 2015 San Bernardino attack.

2016

• An outbreak of the Zika virus is linked to a cluster of cases of microcephaly.
• The United Nations lifts sanctions on Iran in recognition of its dismantling of its nuclear program.
• ISIL claims responsibility for a series of bombings in Brussels, a massacre at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport and car ramming attacks in Nice and Berlin, in addition to inspiring a mass shooting in Orlando, Florida.
• The Gotthard Base Tunnel, the world's longest railway tunnel, is completed.
• The people of the United Kingdom vote narrowly to leave the European Union; Theresa May becomes Prime Minister.
• Donald Trump is elected President of the United States.
• The Colombian government signs a peace deal with FARC despite losing a referendum.
• The President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, is impeached.
• The government of Turkey begins a series of purges in reaction to a failed coup d'état attempt.
• Rodrigo Duterte becomes President of the Philippines. He soon initiates a controversial crack down on drug users in the country.
• Detection of gravitational waves by LIGO confirmed.
• Dhaka attack kills 29 people.
• A shooter kills 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
• 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers.
• 2016 Southern Taiwan earthquake.

2017

• Tensions between North Korea and the UN escalate as the country tests a hydrogen bomb and conducts a series of ballistic missile tests, including two launches over Japan and one said to pose a threat to Washington, DC. The UN responds with a wave of export sanctions.
• A terrorist bombing attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England kills 22 people and injures over 500.
• Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) launch simultaneous attacks in Tehran, destroy the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul Iraq, and kill 311 in Egypt, but are declared defeated in Iraq by the end of the year.
• A military operation targeting Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar is declared ethnic cleansing by the UNHCR.
• A bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia on October 14 kills 500+ people and injures 316. It is one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in modern history.
• Hurricane Harvey kills 90 and becomes the costliest hurricane in US history, while Hurricane Irma kills 134, and Hurricane Maria kills 94.
• Two earthquakes strike Mexico on 7 September and 19 September, killing more than 350.
• Kurdistan and Catalonia declare independence from Iraq and Spain, respectively. Catalonia is not recognised, and Iraq engages the Kurds in conflict.
• Robert Mugabe is ousted in a coup d'état, while Ratko Mladić is declared guilty of genocide.
• The city of Charlottesville is the site of a far-right rally protesting the removal of Confederate statues throughout the US. During the event, a white supremacist rams his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, injuring 19 and killing one.
• 58 people are killed in a mass shooting in Las Vegas
• Allegations of sexual abuse against film producer Harvey Weinstein lead to a wave of similar accusations from within Hollywood and other areas of primarily the English-speaking world.
• Grenfell Tower fire in London kills 72 and injures 70.
• 'Oumuamua, the first known interstellar object, is identified.

For the current year, see 2024.

See also

• Deaths of the 21st century
• Timeline of the 20th century
• 21st century in fiction
• Timeline of the near future