What happened in 2008

45 events　World 6, Japan 1, North America 8, Europe 15, USSR / Russia 1, Asia 10, Middle East 1, Latin America 1, Africa 2

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Highlights of 2008

World6

  • Jan 21Stock markets around the world plunge amid growing fears of a U.S. Great Recession, fueled by the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis.
  • May 21The Union of South American Nations, an intergovernmental organization between states in South America, is founded.
  • Jun 11The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is launched.
  • Jul 2Íngrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages are rescued from FARC rebels by Colombian security forces.
  • Sep 13Hurricane Ike makes landfall as a category 2 hurricane in Texas, killing 113 and causing over $30 billion in damages.
  • Sep 23HTC Dream, the first smartphone powered by Android, was launched.

Japan1

  • Jun 14A 6.9 magnitude earthquake in Iwate Prefecture, Japan, kills 12 and injures more than 400.

North America8

  • Jan 21Online activist group Anonymous initiates Project Chanology, after a leaked interview of Tom Cruise by the Church of Scientology is published on YouTube, and the Church of Scientology issued a "copyright infringement" claim. In response, Anonymous sympathizers took to the streets to protest outside the church (after February 10), while the church's websites and centres were getting DoS attacks, phone line nukes, and black faxes.
  • May 2Iron Man is released in theaters, starting the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
  • May 25NASA's uncrewed Phoenix spacecraft becomes the first to land on the northern polar region of Mars.
  • Jul 10Apple Inc. launches the App Store with 500 apps available at launch.
  • Sep 152008 financial crisis: Stocks fall sharply Monday on a triptych of Wall Street woe: Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy filing, Merrill Lynch's acquisition by Bank of America, and AIG's unprecedented request for short-term financing from the Federal Reserve.
  • SepCollapse of Lehman BrothersOn September 15, the major U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. Financial products built on unpayable home loans (subprime mortgages) were at the root, and stock prices fell around the world. Governments used taxpayers' money to rescue banks.
  • Oct 32008 financial crisis: U.S. President George W. Bush signs the revised Emergency Economic Stabilization Act into law, creating a 700 billion dollar Treasury fund to purchase failing bank assets.
  • Nov 42008 United States presidential election: Democratic U.S. Senator Barack Obama defeats Republican candidate John McCain and is elected the 44th President of the United States, making him the first African-American to be elected to the office.

Europe15

  • Jan 17British Airways Flight 38 crashes near London Heathrow, leaving 48 people injured.
  • Feb 14A Belavia CRJ-100 crash lands at Zvartnots International Airport in Yerevan, Armenia. 7 people are injured.
  • Feb 17Kosovo formally declares independence from Serbia, to a mixed response from the international community.
  • Mar 9The first European Space Agency Automated Transfer Vehicle, a cargo spacecraft for the International Space Station, launches from Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana.
  • Apr 29Grand Theft Auto IV is released worldwide, selling over 3.6 million units and earning $310 million during the first day, becoming not only the highest grossing video game release of all time, but also the highest grossing entertainment product release ever.
  • May 20The Eurovision Song Contest 2008 takes place in Belgrade, Serbia, and is won by Russian entrant Dima Bilan with the song "Believe".
  • May 30International Convention on Cluster Munitions is adopted in Dublin.
  • Jun 7Austria and Switzerland jointly host the UEFA Euro 2008 football tournament, which is won by Spain.
  • Jun 14Expo 2008 opens in Zaragoza, Spain, lasting to September 14, with the topic "Water and sustainable development".
  • Aug 7Georgia intervenes against Russian-backed separatists in its South-Ossetia and Abkhazia regions, causing Russia to invade Georgia and spark the Russo-Georgian war, the first major European land war of the 21st century.
  • Aug 20Spanair Flight 5022 crashes at Madrid–Barajas Airport, killing 154 people on board.
  • Sep 10The proton beam is circulated for the first time in the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, located at CERN, near Geneva, under the Franco-Swiss border.
  • Oct 21The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is officially inaugurated at Geneva.
  • Nov 27XL Airways Germany Flight 888T. An Airbus A320 due to be redelivered to Air New Zealand stalls and crashes over Mediterranean Sea resulting the deaths of 7
  • Dec 6The police shooting of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropulos lead to riots across Greece.

USSR / Russia1

  • Sep 14Aeroflot-Nord Flight 821 crashes on approach to Perm International Airport, killing all 88 occupants onboard.

Asia10

  • Mar 10Protests in Tibet against China's treatment of Tibetans begin.
  • May 3Cyclone Nargis passes through Myanmar, killing more than 138,000 people.
  • May 12An earthquake measuring 7.9 on the moment magnitude scale strikes Sichuan, China, killing an estimated 87,000 people.
  • Jun 21The Princess of the Stars, a passenger ferry owned by Filipino shipping company Sulpicio Lines, capsizes and sinks off the coast of San Fernando, Romblon, at the height of Typhoon Fengshen, resulting in 814 deaths.
  • Aug 1Eleven mountaineers from international expeditions die on K2, the second-highest mountain on Earth, in the worst single accident in the history of K2 mountaineering.
  • Aug 1China opens its first high speed rail line.
  • Aug 8The 2008 Summer Olympics were held in Beijing, China.
  • Sep 20A suicide truck bomb explosion destroys the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing at least 54 and injuring 266.
  • Oct 22The Indian Space Research Organisation successfully launches the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft on a lunar exploration mission.
  • Nov 262008 Mumbai attacks: Ten terrorists of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based terror group, carry out four days of coordinated bombing and shooting attacks across Mumbai, killing 166 people. One terrorist, Ajmal Kasab, was captured alive and executed in 2012.

Middle East1

  • Dec 27Israel invades the Gaza Strip, in response to rockets being fired into Israeli territory by Hamas, and due to weapons being smuggled into the area.

Latin America1

  • Mar 2Venezuela and Ecuador move troops to the Colombian border, following a Colombian raid against FARC guerrillas inside Ecuadorian territory, in which senior commander Raúl Reyes is killed.

Africa2

  • Aug 6President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi of Mauritania is deposed in a military coup d'état.
  • Dec 23A military coup d'état deposes the government of Guinea shortly after the death of longtime President Lansana Conté.