2006



2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification.

January

 * January 1–4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute.
 * January 12 – A stampede during the Stoning of the Devil ritual on the last day at the Hajj in Mina, Saudi Arabia, kills at least 362 pilgrims.
 * January 15 – NASA's Stardust mission successfully ends, the first to return dust from a comet.
 * January 19 – NASA launches the first interplanetary space probe to Pluto, the New Horizons.
 * January 25 – Hamas wins the 2006 Palestinian legislative election.
 * January 29 – The roof of one of the buildings at the Katowice International Fair collapsed in Katowice, Poland, killing 65 and injuring 170.
 * January 30 – Jennifer San Marco goes on a killing spree in Goleta, California that leaves seven people dead before she takes her own life.

February

 * February 4 – Egyptian passenger ferry, MS al-Salam Boccaccio 98, sinks in the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia, killing over 1,000 people.
 * February 6 – Stephen Harper is sworn in as the Prime Minister of Canada.
 * February 10–26 – The 2006 Winter Olympics are held in Turin, Italy.
 * February 17 – A massive mudslide occurs in Southern Leyte, Philippines killing an estimated 1,126 people.
 * February 22 – 2006 al-Askari mosque bombing: Explosions occur at the al-Askari Shrine in Samarra, Iraq. The attack on the shrine, one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, causes the escalation of sectarian violence in Iraq into a full-scale war (the Iraqi Civil War of 2006-2008).

March

 * March 9 – NASA's Cassini–Huygens spacecraft announces a geyser-like emission of vapor, dust, and small ice crystals on Saturn's moon Enceladus, possibly indicating the presence of water.
 * March 10 – NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter enters orbit around Mars.
 * March 10 – Michelle Bachelet becomes the first female president of Chile.
 * March 15 – The United Nations General Assembly votes overwhelmingly to establish the United Nations Human Rights Council.
 * March 21 – Microblogging and social networking service website Twitter (later rebranded to X) was launched.

April

 * April 4 – The Faddoul Brothers, kidnapped on 23 February 2006 in Caracas, Venezuela, are found dead, causing outrage and mass protests against insecurity in the country.
 * April 11
 * The European Space Agency's Venus Express spaceprobe enters Venus' orbit.
 * President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad confirms that Iran has successfully produced a few grams of low-grade enriched uranium.
 * April 20 – Iran announces a deal with Russia, involving a joint uranium enrichment firm on Russian soil; nine days later Iran announces that it will not move all activity to Russia, thus leading to a de facto termination of the deal.

May

 * May 17 – The Human Genome Project publishes the final chromosome sequence, in Nature.
 * May 18–20 – The Eurovision Song Contest 2006 takes place in Athens, Greece, and is won by Finnish band entrant Lordi with the song "Hard Rock Hallelujah".
 * May 27 – The 6.4 Yogyakarta earthquake shakes central Java in Indonesia with an MSK intensity of IX (Destructive), leaving more than 5,700 dead and 37,000 injured.

June

 * June 3 – Montenegro declares its independence from Serbia and Montenegro after a May 21 referendum and becomes a sovereign state. Two days later, the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro officially disbands after Serbia declares its independence as well, ending an 88-year union between the two countries and leaving Serbia as the successor country to the union.
 * June 9 – The 2006 FIFA World Cup takes place in Germany; Italy defeats France in the final.
 * June 28
 * Israel launches an offensive in the Gaza Strip in response to rocketfire by Hamas into Israeli territory.
 * The United States Armed Forces withdraws its forces in Iceland, thereby disbanding the Iceland Defense Force.

July

 * July 1 – The Qinghai–Tibet railway begins operation, making Tibet the final province-level entity of China to establish a conventional railway.
 * July 6 – The Nathu La pass between India and China, sealed during the Sino-Indian War, re-opens for trade after 44 years.
 * July 11 – A series of seven bomb blasts hits the city of Mumbai, India, killing more than 200 people.
 * July 12 – Israeli troops invade Lebanon in response to Hezbollah kidnapping two Israeli soldiers and killing three others. Hezbollah declares open war against Israel two days later.

August

 * August 10 – News was revealed of a thwarted terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives disguised as soft drinks, aboard multiple transatlantic air flights.
 * August 14 – Sri Lankan Civil War, Chencholai bombing: 61 female students in Mullaitivu are killed by the Sri Lankan Air Force in an air strike.
 * August 22 – Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Flight 612 crashes near the Russian border in Ukraine, killing all 170 people on board.
 * August 24 – The International Astronomical Union defines 'planet' at its 26th General Assembly, removing Pluto's status as a planet and reclassifying it as a dwarf planet 76 years after its discovery. Ironically, this was in the same year when NASA sent its first probe to the celestial body.

September

 * September – The MP4 Watch is available to consumers in America.
 * September 7 – British Prime Minister Tony Blair announces his intention to resign by the end of 2007.
 * September 7 – Partial lunar eclipse, visible over most of Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia.
 * September 19 – The Royal Thai Army overthrows the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a coup.
 * September 22 – Annular solar eclipse, visible in Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, parts of Brazil, and the southern Atlantic.
 * September 28 – Typhoon Xangsane passed Manila on its way to causing more than 300 deaths, mostly in the Philippines and Vietnam.
 * September 29 – Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 collides with a business jet over the Amazon rainforest, killing all 154 on board the former.

October

 * October 2 – A large-scale fire destroys a great amount of the US hops production.
 * October 6 – Fredrik Reinfeldt replaces Göran Persson as Prime Minister of Sweden.
 * October 9
 * North Korea claims to have conducted its first-ever nuclear test.
 * Google purchased YouTube for US$1.65 billion.
 * October 11–13 – St Andrews Agreement is held in Scotland between the British and Irish governments on devolution in Northern Ireland.
 * October 13 – South Korean Ban Ki-moon is elected as the new Secretary-General of the United Nations, succeeding Kofi Annan.
 * October 22 – Fernando Alonso wins his second World Drivers Championship
 * October (date unknown) – The Offshore MPA project is initiated.

November

 * November 2 – No. 5, 1948 by Jackson Pollock becomes the most expensive painting after it is sold privately for $140 million.
 * November 3 – Microsoft releases Office 2007 for manufacturing.
 * November 5 – Former President of Iraq Saddam Hussein is sentenced to death by hanging by the Iraqi Special Tribunal. He is later executed by hanging for crimes against humanity on December 30.
 * November 8 – Microsoft releases Windows Vista for manufacturing.
 * November 11 – Sony releases the PlayStation 3.
 * November 12 – The breakaway state of South Ossetia holds a referendum on independence from Georgia.
 * November 22 – A toxic waste dumping incident occurs in Côte d'Ivoire by a Panama ship sent by Singaporean oil company, causing 3 deaths and the poison treatment of 1500 people.
 * November 23 – A series of car bombs and mortar attacks in Sadr City, Baghdad, kills at least 215 people and injure 257 other people.

December

 * December 1 – WikiLeaks leaks Hassan Dahir Aweys' conspiracy to assassinate Somali government officials.
 * December 5 – The military seizes power in Fiji, in a coup d'état led by Commodore Frank Bainimarama.
 * December 11 – Felipe Calderón sends the Mexican military to combat the drug cartels and put down the violence in the state of Michoacán, initiating the Mexican Drug War.
 * December 24 – Ethiopia admits its troops have intervened in Somalia.
 * December 29 – UK settles its Anglo-American loan, post-WWII loan debt.
 * December 30 – Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, was executed by hanging.

Nobel Prizes

 * Chemistry – Roger D. Kornberg.
 * Economics – Edmund Phelps.
 * Literature – Orhan Pamuk.
 * Peace – Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank.
 * Physics – John C. Mather, and George F. Smoot.
 * Physiology or Medicine – Andrew Z. Fire, and Craig C. Mello.

New English words and terms

 * bucket list
 * crowdfunding
 * crowdsourcing
 * Eris
 * hypermiling
 * mumblecore
 * sizzle reel
 * ski cross