2000-2009
timeline contents

2000

• The world celebrates the turn of the millennium | • The Pyrenean Ibex goes extinct | • Sony launches the Playstation 2 | • The dot-com bubble bursts | • The ILOVEYOU computer virus spreads around the world | • Vladimir Putin is elected president of Russia | • Euro 2000 is hosted by Belgium and the Netherlands | • Opening of the Øresund Bridge | • Fast Track Land Reform begins in Zimbabwe | • Concorde crashes in France, killing 113 | • Sinking of the Kursk submarine | • Sydney hosts the Olympic Games | • Personal home computers break the 1 GHz barrier | • Bombing of USS Cole | • Kaprun tunnel disaster | • Bush v. Gore |

2001

• Wikipedia is launched | • George Bush is sworn in as the 43rd President of the USA | • 7.6 magnitude earthquake in Gujarat, India | • NEAR Shoemaker arrives at Eros | • Foot-and-mouth outbreak in the UK | • Space station Mir is deorbited | • The Netherlands becomes the first country to legalise same-sex marriage | • The world's first space tourist | • UK general election | • Execution of Timothy McVeigh | • Windows XP is released | • A devastating terror attack leaves 3,000 dead in America | • The War in Afghanistan begins | • Apple launches the iPod | • Launch of the Xbox game console | • The first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet | • Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy | • China joins the World Trade Organization (WTO) |

2002

• The Euro enters circulation | • Apple introduces the iMac G4 | • Eruption of Mount Nyiragongo | • Ending of the Sierra Leone Civil War | • 2002 Winter Olympics | • The trial of Slobodan Milošević begins | • SpaceX is founded | • The world's first cyborg | • Assassination of Pim Fortuyn | • China Airlines Flight 611 crashes into the Taiwan Strait | • 2002 FIFA World Cup | • The dwarf planet Quaoar is discovered | • The International Criminal Court (ICC) is established | • Sknyliv air show disaster | • Switzerland joins the United Nations | • Introduction of the iRobot Roomba | • Capsizing of MV Le Joola | • The deadliest act of terrorism in the history of Indonesia | • Moscow theatre hostage crisis | • SARS-CoV-1 outbreak |

2003

• Space Shuttle Columbia disaster | • The invasion of Iraq | • The Human Genome Project is completed | • LinkedIn is founded | • Belgium legalises same-sex marriage | • The Czech Republic votes to join the European Union | • Tesla is founded | • The SARS CoV-1 epidemic is contained | • Ending of the Second Congo War | • MySpace is launched | • Record heatwaves kill tens of thousands in Europe | • The Northeast blackout hits Canada and the United States | • Skype is released | • China launches its first manned space mission | • Capture of Saddam Hussein | • Mars Express arrives in orbit around the Red Planet | • A devastating earthquake hits Iran |

2004

• The emergence of Web 2.0 | • Flash Airlines Flight 604 crashes in the Red Sea | • Mars exploration rovers | • RMS Queen Mary 2 enters service | • World's first 1 gigabyte SD card | • Facebook is launched | • Hubble Ultra Deep Field | • Train bombings in Madrid kill nearly 200 people | • The discovery of Sedna is announced | • The first recorded hurricane in the South Atlantic | • Expansion of NATO | • Enlargement of the EU | • Massachusetts legalises same-sex marriage | • The first privately funded human spaceflight | • The U.S. transfers sovereignty to the Iraqi Interim Government | • Athens hosts the Olympic Games | • Beslan school siege | • Graphene is isolated | • George W. Bush is re-elected | • The Po'ouli goes extinct | • Indian Ocean earthquake leaves a quarter of a million dead | • Asia gets a new tallest building |

2005

• The dwarf planet Eris is discovered | • The Huygens probe reveals images of Titan's surface | • Iraqi parliamentary election | • Google Maps is launched | • YouTube is launched | • The Kyoto Protocol officially goes into effect | • The Airbus A380 superjumbo makes its first flight | • Intel launches the Pentium D | • Reddit is founded | • Spain legalises same-sex marriage | • Live 8 takes place around the world | • Deep Impact collides its impactor with comet 9P/Tempel | • USB flash drives replace floppy disks | • Suicide bombers in London kill 56 people, injure 700 others | • The IRA ends its armed campaign | • Hurricane Katrina floods New Orleans | • Baghdad bridge stampede | • Muhammad cartoons controversy in Denmark | • 7.6 magnitude earthquake hits Pakistan | • Angela Merkel becomes the first female Chancellor of Germany | • Microsoft releases the Xbox 360 |

2006

• Crude oil production is reaching a plateau | • Twitter is launched | • Pluto is demoted to "dwarf planet" status | • North Korea conducts its first nuclear test | • The West African black rhino is declared extinct | • Saddam Hussein is executed |

2007

• Global economic downturn | • Nicolas Sarkozy is elected President of the French Republic | • Brown succeeds Blair as Prime Minister of Great Britain | • Apple debuts the iPhone | • Multiple suicide bombings kill 796 people in Kahtaniya, northern Iraq | • Arctic sea ice hits a record low | • Amazon releases the Kindle | • Google Street View is launched | • Benazir Bhutto is assassinated in Pakistan |

2008

• Dmitry Medvedev is elected president of Russia | • Cyclone Nargis devastates Burma | • Oil prices hit a record high | • The Internet continues to boom | • Scientists extract images directly from the brain | • Breakthrough in facial CGI | • Beijing hosts the Olympic Games |

2009

• Barack Obama is sworn in as 44th president of the USA | • Major breakthrough in cancer research | • The mouse genome is fully sequenced | • Scientists engineer new plastics without the use of fossil fuels | • Water is discovered on the Moon | • Kepler searches for Earth-like planets | • Discovery of the first exoplanet that could hold liquid water | • Mercury is 98% mapped | • Mind control headsets enter the video games market | • 3D scanning enters the consumer market | • The tallest man-made structure in history is completed | • Africa's population reaches one billion |

2010-2019 »