Turmoil in the Arab world, deepening crisis on financial markets, disaster in Japan and the end of the line for Osama bin Laden: Here is a panorama of past world events.
Key events of 2011
January
14: Confronted with a massive popular movement which unleashes unrest across the Arab world, Tunisia’s authoritarian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali flees, after 23 years in power.
Some 300 have been killed in the unrest. In his absence he is sentenced to 66 years in prison.
February
11: In Egypt massive crowds fill the central Tahrir Square in Cairo and leader Hosni Mubarak becomes the next Arab leader to step down. He hands over power to the military. Nearly 850 civilians are killed in the revolt. Mubarak, in power since 1981, goes on trial in August.
14: In the latest country to join what is dubbed the Arab Spring, Bahrain sees protests calling for political reforms. Saudi Arabia sends troops, and the protests are crushed by mid-March. Around 30 people die.
15-16: A rebellion erupts in Benghazi, Libya’s second-biggest city, against the 42-year-old regime of Col. Gaddafi. On March 19, French, US and British forces launch UN-mandated air strikes, before handing over command to Nato on March 31. The opposition creates the National Transitional Council, which is recognised by the UN and over 60 countries.
22: In Christchurch, New Zealand, a devastating 6.3 temblor kills over 200 people.
26: Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen becomes the first political victim of the financial crisis rattling the eurozone after his ruling Fianna Fail party is crushed by voters angry over the economy and an EU-IMF bailout.
March
11: A massive earthquake and tsunami devastates northeastern Japan, leaving 20,000 people dead or missing and unleashing a nuclear crisis at the Fukushima plant, the worst since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
15: Syria becomes the next Arab country to face popular protests, which are heavily put down by the security forces. Thousands die in months of unrest. Syria is later suspended from the Arab League.
April
11: Troops loyal to Ivory Coast leader Alassane Ouattara capture his besieged rival Laurent Gbagbo in Abidjan after a disputed election. In November Gbagbo is transferred to the International Criminal Court.
29: Britain’s Prince William and his bride Kate Middleton marry with huge crowds and a global TV audience watching Britain’s biggest royal celebration for three decades. They become the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
May
1: The Vatican confers “blessed” status – one step from full sainthood – on the late pope John Paul II at a solemn ceremony.
2: Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, is shot dead by US commandos in Pakistan after a 10-year manhunt.
14: IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a high-profile figure in French politics and global economics, resigns and faces trial after being accused of a sexual assault on a maid in his hotel suite in New York. The charges are later dismissed.
17: The start of anti-capitalism demonstrations in Spain. They spread to Britain and the United States via Chile, with tens of thousands demonstrating around the world on October 15.
26: Serbia arrests Europe’s most wanted man Bosnian Serb wartime army commander Ratko Mladic. He is transferred to the UN’s war crimes court in The Hague.
June
22: US President Barack Obama decides to bring 33,000 US troops home from Afghanistan by mid-2012. On July 17 Afghanistan begins handing responsibility for security from Nato soldiers to its own troops.
July
9: South Sudan proclaims independence after a January referendum in which almost 99 per cent voted in favour of secession. The new country becomes the UN’s 193rd member state.
21: The US space shuttle Atlantis cruises home for a final time closing a 30-year chapter in American space exploration, in which two shuttles – Challenger and Columbia – were lost in accidents with the death of 14 astronauts.
21: Eurozone leaders agree on a second bailout for Greece worth €159 billion in a bid to prevent the country from going bankrupt and contagion setting in in the EU currency zone.
22: 77 people are killed in massive twin bombing and shooting spree by a right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik in Norway. He is later judged insane.
August
2: US Congress agrees on a massive austerity plan and raising the US debt ceiling. On August 6 Standard and Poor’s cuts the US credit rating from its top-flight triple-A for the first time in history.
4: The police shooting of a 29-year-old black man in Tottenham, north London, provokes rioting in the capital and beyond. Across England, five people are killed and hundreds of shops looted, with some set alight.
September
20: Burhanuddin Rabbani, Afghanistan’s former president tasked with finding a peace deal with the Taliban, is assassinated in a turban suicide attack.
23: Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas unsuccessfully asks the UN to admit the state of Palestine. On October 31, however, Palestinians win entry to Unesco, prompting the US to cut the organisation’s funding.
October
7: Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian “peace warrior” Leymah Gbowee, and Yemen’s Arab Spring activist Tawakkul Karman win the Nobel Peace Prize.
20: Toppled Libyan leader Col. Gaddafi is killed after forces from the country’s new rulers seize his hometown of Sirte after a seven-month-long campaign. On October 23, the new rulers declare that Libya has been liberated.
21: US President Barack Obama announces that US forces, numbering around 39,000, will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the year after a nearly nine-year campaign and 4,400 casualties.
23: More than 600 die in a devastating 7.2 magnitude earthquake in eastern Turkey.
23: The moderate Islamists of the Ennahda party win 89 of the 217 seats in Tunisia’s new constituent assembly.
27: EU leaders reach a ground-breaking deal to save the bloc’s single currency, including a new rescue of Greece, a trillion-euro bailout fund, and cut a deal squeezing banks to share the burden of the two-year debt crisis.
31: The world’s population passes the seven billion mark.
November
6: Greek Socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou agrees to stand down amid a crippling debt crisis. He is succeeded by vice-president of the European Central Bank Lucas Papademos.
7: Michael Jackson’s doctor Conrad Murray is found guilty of involuntary manslaughter over the King of Pop’s 2009 death. He is later sentenced to a maximum four years behind bars.
8: The UN atomic watchdog says in a report it has “serious concerns” about Iran’s nuclear activities, and has “credible” information Tehran may have worked on developing atomic weapons, prompting the West to reinforce sanctions.
12: Silvio Berlusconi becomes the latest leader to lose his job over the eurozone financial crisis, resigning amid Italy’s €1,900-billion debt burden. He is replaced by technocrat Mario Monti.
19: Start of a week of clashes in Egypt between police and demonstrators opposed to the military regime that will leave 42 dead. As during the revolution that ousted Mubarak, the unrest centres on Tahrir Square.
23: In another development in the Arab Spring, after months of deadly clashes Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh signs a deal to hand over his powers after 33 years in office.
26: The US space agency’s Curiosity rover blasts off on a nearly nine-month journey to Mars where it will search for signs that life once existed on the Red Planet.
29: Britain’s embassy in Tehran is attacked by protesters angry at fresh sanctions against Tehran’s nuclear programme. Britain expels Iranian diplomats and shuts its embassy in response.
30: Political parties in Belgium, which has been without a government for 535 days, agree on the blueprint of a ruling coalition to be headed by French-speaking Socialist Elio Di Rupo.
December
4: Islamists trounce their liberal rivals in the opening phase of Egypt’s first election since the fall of Mubarak, with one in four voters choosing hardline Salafists.
5: France and Germany call for a rewrite of the EU treaty to set uniform tough budget standards across the eurozone, as S&P threatens sweeping ratings downgrades if they fail to act to end the eurozone debt crisis.