What happened in 2010

World3

• Jan 15The longest annular solar eclipse of the 3rd millennium occurs.
• Jun 19Wedding of Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, and Daniel Westling
• Dec 21The first total lunar eclipse to occur on the day of the Northern winter solstice and Southern summer solstice since 1638 takes place.

Japan2

• Mar 14Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver Versions were released in North America. These are the highest rated games to date, with a user score of 9.1/10 on Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim," and a critic score of 87.
• JunHayabusa returnsIt brought back dust from the asteroid Itokawa and delivered its capsule to Earth on June 13. After a seven-year journey through engine failures and lost contact, it was the first mission to bring material back from an asteroid.

North America7

• Feb 12The 2010 Winter Olympics are held in Vancouver and Whistler, Canada.
• Apr 3The first iPad is released.
• Apr 20The Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers. The resulting Horizon oil spill, one of the largest in history, spreads for several months, damaging the waters and the United States coastline, and prompting international debate and doubt about the practice and procedures of offshore drilling.
• May 6The 2010 flash crash, a trillion-dollar stock market crash, occurs over 36 minutes, initiated by a series of automated trading programs in a feedback loop.
• Jul 16First (test) Instagram posts made by co-developers Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom in San Francisco; the service launches publicly on October 6.
• Sep 22Anonymous initiates Operation Payback, a coordinated cyberattack on multiple corporations, law firms, and politicians over the banning of such as LimeWire and The Pirate Bay and also the politicians and financial institutions against WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website.
• Oct 6Instagram was launched.

Europe10

• Feb 15Two trains collide in Halle, Belgium, killing 19 and injuring 171 people.
• Apr 10The president of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, is among 96 killed when their airplane crashes near Smolensk, Russia.
• Apr 14Volcanic ash from one of several eruptions beneath Mount Eyjafjallajökull, an ice cap in Iceland, begins to disrupt air traffic across northern and western Europe.
• Apr 27Standard & Poor's downgrades Greece's sovereign credit rating to junk 4 days after the activation of a €45-billion EU–IMF bailout, triggering the decline of stock markets worldwide and of the euro's value, and furthering a European sovereign debt crisis.
• May 22Inter Milan beats Bayern München 2–0 in the 2010 Champions League Final at the Santiago Bernabéu.
• May 25The Eurovision Song Contest 2010 takes place in Oslo, Norway, and is won by German entrant Lena with the song "Satellite".
• Aug 10The World Health Organization declares the H1N1 influenza pandemic over, saying worldwide flu activity has returned to typical seasonal patterns.
• Nov 20Participants of the 2010 NATO Lisbon summit issue the Lisbon Summit Declaration.
• Nov 21Eurozone countries agree to a rescue package for the Republic of Ireland from the European Financial Stability Facility in response to the country's financial crisis.
• Nov 29The European Union agree to an €85 billion rescue deal for Ireland from the European Financial Stability Facility, the International Monetary Fund and bilateral loans from the United Kingdom, Denmark and Sweden.

USSR / Russia1

• Jan 19North Caucasian Federal District was split from Southern Federal District by decree of Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.

Asia17

• Mar 26The ROKS Cheonan, a South Korean Navy ship carrying 104 personnel, sinks off the country's west coast, killing 46. In May, an independent investigation blames North Korea, which denies the allegations.
• Apr 7Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev flees the country amid fierce anti-government riots in the capital, Bishkek.
• May 1Expo 2010 is held in Shanghai, China.
• May 10The 2010 Philippine presidential election is held, with Benigno Aquino III elected as Philippine President.
• May 19Protests in Bangkok, Thailand, end with a bloody military crackdown, killing 91 and injuring more than 2,100.
• May 22Air India Express Flight 812 overshoots the runway at Mangalore International Airport in India, killing 158 and leaving 8 survivors.
• Jun 10Ethnic riots in Kyrgyzstan between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks result in the deaths of hundreds.
• Jul 28Airblue Flight 202 crashes near Islamabad, Pakistan, killing all 152 people on board.
• Jul 29Heavy monsoon rains begin to cause widespread flooding in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Over 1,600 are killed, and more than one million are displaced by the floods.
• Aug 23The Manila hostage crisis occurred near the Quirino Grandstand in Manila, Philippines killing 9 people, including the perpetrator, while injuring 9 others.
• Oct 25An earthquake and consequent tsunami off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, kills over 400 people and leaves hundreds missing.
• Oct 31Expo 2010 concludes in Shanghai, China.
• Nov 4Qantas Flight 32 suffers an engine failure requiring an emergency landing in Singapore.
• Nov 11The G-20 summit is held in Seoul, South Korea. Korea becomes the first non-G8 nation to host a G-20 leaders summit.
• Nov 23North Korea shells Yeonpyeong Island, prompting a military response by South Korea. The incident causes an escalation of tension on the Korean Peninsula and prompts widespread international condemnation. The United Nations declares it to be one of the most serious incidents since the end of the Korean War.

2 more in the app

Middle East4

• Jan 4The tallest man-made structure to date, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is officially opened.
• Jan 19Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh is assassinated in Dubai.
• Jan 25Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 crashes into the Mediterranean shortly after take-off from Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport, killing all 90 people on board.
• May 31Nine activists are killed in a clash with soldiers when Israeli Navy forces raid and capture a flotilla of ships attempting to break the Gaza blockade.

Latin America5

• Jan 12A 7.0-magnitude earthquake occurs in Haiti, devastating the nation's capital, Port-au-Prince.
• Feb 27An 8.8-magnitude earthquake occurs in Chile, triggering a tsunami over the Pacific and killing at least 525. The earthquake is one of the largest in recorded history.
• Aug 16AIRES Flight 8250, a Boeing 737–700, crashed on landing at San Andrés, Colombia, killing two.
• Oct 10The Netherlands Antilles are dissolved, with the islands being split up and given a new constitutional status.
• Nov 4Aero Caribbean Flight 883 crashes in central Cuba, killing all 68 people on board.

Africa6

• Jan 8The Togo national football team is attacked in Cabinda Province, Angola, and as a result withdraws from the Africa Cup of Nations. The attack was perpetrated by the FLEC, their first since the Angolan Civil War.
• Jan 10Religious violence erupts in Jos, Nigeria, which left scores dead, and many injured.
• Feb 18The president of Niger, Mamadou Tandja, is overthrown after a group of soldiers storms the presidential palace and form a ruling junta, the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy headed by chef d'escadron Salou Djibo.
• May 12Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 crashes at runway at Tripoli International Airport in Libya, killing 103 of the 104 people on board.
• Jun 11The 2010 FIFA World Cup was held in South Africa and was won by Spain.
• Dec 17The attempted suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi, a street vendor in Tunisia, triggers the Tunisian Revolution and the wider Arab Spring throughout the Arab world.

Oceania2

• Sep 4A 7.1 magnitude earthquake rocks Christchurch, New Zealand causing large amounts of damage but no direct fatalities. It is the first in a series of earthquakes between 2010 and 2012 that resulted in the deaths of 187 people and over $40 billion worth of damage. Seismologists noted that the earthquake sequence was highly unusual, and likely to never happen again anywhere else in the world.
• Nov 28WikiLeaks releases a collection of more than 250,000 American diplomatic cables, including 100,000 marked "secret" or "confidential".