What happened in 2021

World6

• Feb 9The UAE's uncrewed Hope spacecraft becomes the first Arabian mission successfully to enter orbit around Mars.
• Feb 202020–21 H5N8 outbreak: 7 people test positive for H5N8 bird flu at a poultry farm in southern Russia, becoming the first known human cases.
• Apr 17The Soyuz MS-17 mission concludes, returning three crewmembers of Expedition 64 to Earth from the International Space Station.
• Jun 10An annular solar eclipse is visible from Canada, Greenland, the North Pole, and the Russian Far East.
• Aug 29Hurricane Ida strikes New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, after having caused devastation in Venezuela.
• Dec 16Typhoon Rai, also known as Typhoon Odette, hits the Philippines and caused destruction to agriculture, establishments, and houses, and caused many injured and deaths.

Japan3

• JulTokyo 2020 OlympicsPostponed by a year because of COVID-19, it was held in July 2021 with almost no spectators. It was the first time an Olympics had been postponed.
• Aug 24The 2020 Summer Paralympics were held in Tokyo, Japan. They were originally scheduled for 25 August–6 September 2020, but were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Sep 15AUKUS: A trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States is formed, to counter the influence of China. This includes enabling Australia to build its first nuclear-powered submarine fleet.

North America21

• JanJanuary 6 – Supporters of US President Donald Trump attack the US Capitol, disrupting certification of the 2020 presidential election, and forcing both houses of Congress to evacuate. Five people die during the ensuing riot. The event is classified as a domestic terrorist attack, and draws international condemnation.
• Feb 18NASA's Mars 2020 mission (containing the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter drone) lands on Mars at Jezero Crater, after seven months of travel.
• Apr 19NASA's Ingenuity helicopter, part of the Mars 2020 mission, performs the first powered flight on another planet in history.
• Apr 23SpaceX launches the Crew-2 mission, carrying four crew members of Expedition 65 and 66 to the International Space Station aboard Crew Dragon Endeavour.
• May 2The SpaceX Crew-1 mission ends, returning four crew members of Expedition 64 and 65 to Earth from the International Space Station aboard Crew Dragon Resilience.
• Jun 24Surfside condominium collapse: A portion of the Champlain South Towers condominium building collapses in Surfside, Florida, United States, leaving 98 people dead. One survivor was pulled from the wreckage while 35 others were evacuated from the uncollapsed section of the building.
• Jun 25Derek Chauvin is convicted and sentenced to 22 years and 6 months in prison, for the murder of George Floyd. Despite this, the civil unrest still goes on.
• Sep 16Inspiration4, launched by SpaceX, becomes the first all-civilian private spaceflight, carrying a four-person crew on a three-day orbit of the Earth. Sian Proctor becomes first female commercial astronaut spaceship pilot and Hayley Arceneaux becomes first astronaut with a prosthesis.
• Oct 3The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and assorted media partners publish a set of 11.9 million documents leaked from 14 financial services companies known as the Pandora Papers, revealing offshore financial activities that involve multiple current and former world leaders.
• Oct 5Microsoft releases the desktop operating system Windows 11.
• Oct 16The Lucy spacecraft is launched by NASA, the first mission to explore the Trojan asteroids.
• Nov 5A crowd crush at the Astroworld Festival hosted by Travis Scott in Houston, Texas, kills 10 people and causes 300+ injuries.
• Nov 11SpaceX launches the Crew-3 mission, carrying four Expedition 66 crew members to the International Space Station.
• Nov 24NASA launches the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the first attempt to deflect an asteroid for the purpose of learning how to protect Earth.
• Dec 25NASA, ESA, the Canadian Space Agency and the Space Telescope Science Institute launch the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope.

6 more in the app

Europe19

• Jan 242021 Portuguese presidential election: Incumbent president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is reelected.
• Feb 22Luca Attanasio, the Italian Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is murdered near Goma.
• Apr 23UEFA announces that due to a lack of guarantees regarding spectators caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland would be removed as a tournament host for the UEFA Euro 2020.
• Apr 28The European Union approves the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, governing the relationship between the EU and UK after Brexit.
• May 23Ryanair Flight 4978 is forced to land by Belarusian authorities to detain dissident journalist Roman Protasevich.
• Jun 11The delayed UEFA Euro 2020, hosted by 11 different countries, is held, and is won by Italy after beating England on penalties in the final.
• Jul 11Bulgaria holds a parliamentary election, with the party There Is Such a People (ITN) leading.
• Jul 122021 European floods: Heavy rain causes flooding in the border region of Germany and Belgium, resulting in 229 deaths, including 184 in Germany, 42 in Belgium with 1 person still missing there, and 2 in Romania. The event is attributed to a slowed jetstream caused by climate change.
• Aug 3Wildfires in Greece begin.
• Aug 9The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases the first part of its Sixth Assessment Report, which concludes that the effects of human-caused climate change are now "widespread, rapid, and intensifying".
• Oct 6The 2021 UEFA Nations League Finals is held in Italy, and is won by France. They were originally scheduled for 2–6 June 2021, but were moved following the rescheduling of UEFA Euro 2020 to June and July 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Oct 8The 2021 Czech legislative election is held, with the main opposition coalition alliance of SPOLU and Pirates and Mayors gaining a legislative majority.
• Nov 14The 2021 Bulgarian general election is held.
• Nov 26COVID-19 pandemic: The World Health Organization convenes an emergency meeting in Geneva amid concerns over Omicron, a highly mutated variant of COVID-19 first identified in South Africa that appears more infectious than Delta.
• Dec 12The 2021 New Caledonian independence referendum is held.

4 more in the app

USSR / Russia3

• Apr 9Roscosmos launches the Soyuz MS-18 mission, carrying three Expedition 65 crewmembers to the International Space Station.
• Jul 29Roscosmos' Nauka laboratory docks with the International Space Station following a protracted seventeen-year development and launch on 21 July. Hours after docking, a malfunction of its thrusters causes a temporary loss of control of the station, spinning it up to 45 degrees from its normal orbital attitude.
• Oct 5Roscosmos launches the Soyuz MS-19 mission, which carries an Expedition 66 crewmember and two Channel One Russia personnel to the International Space Station. The two Channel One crew will perform principal photography on the film Vyzov aboard the station.

Asia15

• Jan 9Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 crashes north of Jakarta, Indonesia, killing all 62 people on board.
• Feb 1A coup d'état in Myanmar removes Aung San Suu Kyi from power and restores military rule leading to widespread demonstrations across the country.
• Feb 25The Armenian military calls for prime minister Nikol Pashinyan to resign. Pashinyan accuses the military of attempting a coup d'état.
• Apr 22021 Hualien train derailment: In Taiwan, a Taroko Express train collided with a truck that rolled down a slope and derailed, resulting in 49 deaths and 202 injuries.
• Apr 4More than 270 people are killed in Indonesia and East Timor after Cyclone Seroja strikes East Nusa Tenggara and the island of Timor.
• Apr 28At least 55 people are killed and nearly 50,000 more are displaced in one of the most serious clashes in Central Asia following border disputes between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
• Apr 29The China National Space Administration launches the first module of its Tiangong space station, named Tianhe, beginning a two-year effort to build the station in orbit.
• May 12COVID-19 pandemic in India: The country's death toll exceeds 250,000. Delhi cremation grounds were running out of places while hundreds of bodies were reported washed up on the banks of the Ganges.
• May 14The China National Space Administration lands its Zhurong rover at Utopia Planitia on Mars, making China the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the planet and only the second to land a rover.
• Jun 72021 Ghotki rail crash: In Pakistan, 2 trains collided in Daharki, in the Ghotki District of Sindh. Killing 65 people and injuring 150 people.
• Jun 9The 2021 Mongolian presidential election is held.
• Jun 17The China National Space Administration sends its first three astronauts to occupy the Tiangong Space Station, the country's first space station.
• Jul 5More than 1,000 Afghan soldiers flee to neighbouring Tajikistan after clashing with Taliban militants.
• Sep 13Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Anwar Ibrahim, the leader of the main Malaysian opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan, sign a confidence and supply agreement ending the 18-month political crisis that has led to the fall of two successive governments in Malaysia.
• Oct 24The 2021 Uzbek presidential election is held.

Middle East13

• Mar 23Ever Given, one of the largest container ships in the world, runs aground and obstructs the Suez Canal, disrupting global trade. The ship is freed on March 29.
• May 112021 Israel–Palestine crisis: Israel hits the Gaza Strip with airstrikes as Hamas increases rocket fire. This follows tensions over the possible eviction of several Palestinians due to a long-standing property dispute in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem.
• May 26The 2021 Syrian presidential election is held.
• Jun 2The 2021 Israeli presidential election is held, and won by Isaac Herzog. In order to remove Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from power, Naftali Bennett agrees to form a coalition with the Israeli opposition as a rotation government that will come to take effect after eleven days.
• Jun 18The 2021 Iranian presidential election is held.
• Jul 18An international investigation reveals that spyware sold by Israel's NSO Group to different governments is being used to target heads of state, along with thousands of activists, journalists and dissidents around the world.
• Jul 29The oil tanker Mercer Street is attacked off the coast of Oman.
• Aug 152021 Taliban offensive: The Taliban capture Kabul; the Afghan government surrenders to the Taliban.
• Aug 262021 Kabul airport attack: At least 182 people are killed, including 13 U.S. service members, in a suicide bomb attack at Kabul airport.
• Aug 27The United States launches an airstrike that it claims killed the Islamic State member who was believed to have planned the Kabul airport bombings. However, the U.S. Defense Department later acknowledged that the strike instead killed ten civilians, including seven children, and that no terrorists were killed.
• Sep 14The inaugural season of the UEFA Europa Conference League, the third tier of European club football, kicks off with Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv winning 4–1 against Armenian club FC Alashkert.
• Oct 1The 2020 World Expo in Dubai begins. Its opening was originally scheduled for 20 October 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Nov 30The 2021 FIFA Arab Cup is held in Qatar, and is won by Algeria. of Barbados Sandra Mason is sworn in as the country's first President]]

Latin America10

• Mar 6Pope Francis meets with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf, Iraq. It is the first-ever meeting between a pope and a grand ayatollah.
• Apr 11Peru holds a general election, with Pedro Castillo and the left-wing Free Peru party winning.
• May 3Mexico City Metro overpass collapse: 26 people were killed and 98 people were injured when a Mexico City Metro train bridge collapsed when a train passed it.
• Jul 7Assassination of Jovenel Moïse: Haitian President Jovenel Moïse is shot to death by unidentified gunmen at 1:00 am local time in his home. First Lady Martine Moïse is injured and hospitalized.
• Jul 11Thousands of Cubans, most of them young, attend a rare anti-government protest in San Antonio de los Baños to protest the increased food and medicine shortages brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Jul 19Leftist schoolteacher Pedro Castillo is confirmed as President of Peru over a month after the 2021 Peruvian general election.
• Aug 14A 7.2-magnitude earthquake strikes Haiti, killing more than 2,500 people.
• Nov 21The 2021 Chilean general election is held.
• Dec 9A truck crash in Chiapas, Mexico, kills 55 migrants who were being smuggled in it from Guatemala through Mexico to its border with the United States.
• Dec 19The second round of the 2021 Chilean presidential election is held; leftist candidate Gabriel Boric is elected President.

Africa8

• Feb 24COVID-19 pandemic: the COVAX vaccine-sharing initiative delivers its first vaccines, delivering 600,000 doses for healthcare workers in Ghana.
• Mar 19Samia Suluhu Hassan is sworn in as president of Tanzania following the death of her predecessor, John Magufuli.
• Apr 20Idriss Déby, President of Chad, is killed in clashes with rebel forces after 30 years in office. The constitution is suspended and a Transitional Military Council is established to govern the country for 18 months.
• May 24A coup d'état in Mali removes interim president Bah Ndaw and the acting prime minister, Moctar Ouane, from power and restores military rule leading to the country being suspended from the Economic Community of West African States and the African Union, as well as France suspending its military operations in the country.
• Jul 25Tunisian president Kais Saied formally takes power in the country, suspending the parliament and sacking the prime minister.
• Sep 52021 Guinean coup d'état: Guinea's President Alpha Condé is detained by an elite military unit led by a former French legionnaire, Lt. Col. Mamady Doumbouya, claiming to have seized power.
• Oct 25The Sudanese military launches a coup against the government. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok is placed under house arrest. President Abdel Fattah al-Burhan declares a state of emergency and announces the dissolution of the government.
• Dec 4The 2021 Gambian presidential election is held and incumbent president Adama Barrow is reelected.

Oceania1

• Jul 23The Court of Appeal of Samoa deemed the swearing-in of Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa and her government as constitutional, ending a three-month constitutional crisis.