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January
1st |
The countries of Bulgaria and Romania became full members of the European Union. |
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January
1st |
Hong Kong passed a law making smoking in all public places illegal. |
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January
1st |
Angola joined the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). |
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January
4th |
Nancy Pelosi became the first female speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States . |
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January
8th |
Daniel Ortega became the 83rd President of Nicaragua. It was the second time he was elected as such, having been elected in 1985. Previously he had been one of the leaders of the Sandinista National Liberation Front. |
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January
18th |
The United Kingdom was hit by one of the fiercest storms in almost 20 years. The storm claimed the lives of 14 people. |
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January
28th |
In one of the fiercest post-war battles of the Iraq war US and Iraqi forces killed more than 300 suspected militants in Najaf, Iraq. |
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January
30th |
Microsoft released the Windows Vista operating system. |
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February
3rd |
A truck bomb was detonated amidst a crowded Baghdad market area. The blast resulted in the death of 135 people and the injuring of more than 300. |
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February
27th |
The Taliban staged a suicide attack at Bagram Air Base while the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney, was visiting it. The blast killed 23 people, but the US Vice President was not injured. |
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March
6th |
The US lottery, Mega Millions, set a new world record when its jackpot reached 390 million USD. The jackpot was split by two ticket holders from two states, Georgia and New Jersey. |
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March
23th |
Iran's naval forces seized a number of British sailors and marines in disputed Iran-Iraq waters. They were subsequently released on April the 6th 2007. |
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April
26th |
Ethnic Russians riot in Tallinn, Estonia, after the decision to move the Bronze Soldier monument. The riots lasted for two nights and claimed the life of one person. The Bronze soldier is a Soviet World War II war memorial about the liberation of Tallinn by Soviet forces. |
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May
17th |
The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Moscow Patriarchate were reunited after eighty years of schism. The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad was formed as a response against the policy of Bolsheviks with respect to religion in the Soviet Union soon after the Russian Revolution of 1917. The separation took place in 1927 when the then imprisoned Patriarch Sergius I of Moscow pledged the church's loyalty to the Bolshevik state. |
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May
20th |
The Sheikh of Dubai, Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, made the largest single charitable donation in modern history. He committed 7,41 billion Euro to an educational foundation in the Middle East. |
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October
11th |
Austrian born singer, Werner von Trapp, died at the age of 91. He was a member of the famous Trapp Family that fled Austria after the German annexation of Austria, fearing reprisals resulting from declining to sing at Hitler's birthday party and his father's refusal to serving in the German Navy. The family's story was the inspiration of the world famous musical "The Sound of Music". |
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October
18th |
Pakistani politician, Benazir Bhutto, returned to her homeland after 8 years of self-imposed exile. On the night of her return a couple of bombs exploded near Bhutto's convoy, killing more than 100 of the people who had gathered to cheer for her return. Bhutto was not injured in the attack. |
