- January 12
- A magnitude 7.0 earthquake strikes Haiti, largely destroying the capital, Port-au-Prince, in the most powerful earthquake to hit the country in more than 200 years. An estimated 100,000 people are killed. [35] [57] [105] [615]
- January 15
- The longest annular solar eclipse of the 3rd millennium occurs. [615]
- January 17
- Sebastian Pinera is elected Chile's new president. [105]
- January 19
- US food company Kraft Foods makes a deal to buy British candy maker Cadbury for about US$19.6 billion, the largest European food and beverage deal on record. [35]
- Japan Airlines Corp files for bankruptcy protection owing more than US$25 billion. Shareholders, creditors, and combined banks will give up US$11 billion in debt in a restructuring deal. [35]
- January 20
- Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is killed in a Dubai hotel room, likely by Israeli Mossad. [534.56]
- January 25
- Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET409 Boeing 737-800 plane breaks up in a thunderstorm shortly after takeoff from Beirit, Lebanon, and plunges into the Mediterranean Sea in a ball of fire. All 90 people aboard perish. [35] [615]
- January 26
- Sri Lanka election, President Mahinda Rajapaksa wins re-election with 58 percent of vote. [35] [636.27]
- Dutch auto group Spyker signs a deal to buy Sweden's Saab from General Motors for US$74 million in cash, $100 million from Saab operating capital, and $326 million in deferred shares of Saab Spyker Automobiles. [35] [636.76]
- January 27
- The film Avatar surpasses Titanic to become the highest grossing movie of all time, at US$1.859 billion worldwide. [57]
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- (month unknown)
- H1N1-2009 pandemic ends. About 700 million people around world infected, about 280,000 deaths. [1639.18]
- February 1
- A woman detonates an explosives vest among a group of pilgrims 80km north-east of Baghdad, killing at least 41 people and injuring 106. [57]
- US President Barack Obama announces a US$3.8 trillion budget plan for 2011, forecasting the US deficit would rise to a record US$1.56 trillion this year. [57]
- US President Barack Obama cancels the Constellation project designed to take humans to the Moon by 2020. [57]
- February 2
- Shareholders of British chocolate-maker Cadbury vote in favor of the 11.7 billion pound takeover by Kraft of the USA. [35]
- February 3
- The sculpture L'Homme qui marche I by Alberto Giacometti sells in London for 65 million pounds (US$103.7 million), setting a new world record for a work of art sold at auction. [615] (February 5 [57])
- February 5
- In the Iraqi city of Kerbala, twin car bombs kill at least 40 people and wound 145 others. [35]
- Egypt completes the restoration of the Saint Anthony's monastery, believed to be the world's oldest Christian monastery at 1600 years old. The restoration project cost over US$14 million and took over eight years. [57]
- February 7
- Ukrainian voters elect Viktor Yanukovich as new president, narrowly defeating Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. [35]
- February 8
- The NASA space shuttle Endeavour blasts off from Florida, carrying six astronauts on a voyage to install the last two main pieces of the International Space Station. [35]
- February 11
- The US space agency NASA launches its Solar Dynamics Observatory from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The observatory is designed to acquire detailed images of the Sun to explain variation in its activity. [57]
- February 13
- Over 15,000 American, British and Afghan troops launch the biggest offensive in Afghanistan since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. [57]
- At least nine people are killed and 57 others injured in a bomb attack at the German Bakery restaurant in India's western city of Pune. [57]
- February
- A 100-ounce gold nugget weighing 6.5 pounds is discovered in Nevada County of northern California, the largest gold nugget ever found in California. [589.62]
- February 15
- Two commuter trains crash head-on near Brussels, Belgium, during morning rush hour, killing at least 18 people, injuring 162. [35]
- Norwegian fertilizer-maker Yara agrees to buy American firm Terra for US$4.1 billion, extending Yara's lead as world's biggest maker of nitrogen-based fertilizer. [534.62]
- February 18
- A single-engine Piper Cherokee plane crashes into a seven-storey office building in Austin, Texas, killing pilot Joseph Andrew Stack and one person in the building. The pilot left a long suicide note expressing his anger at federal tax authorities. [57]
- The President of Niger, Tandja Mamadou, 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. [615]
- February 22
- A copy of the first comic book featuring Superman, Action Comics No. 1 from 1938, sells for US$1 million, on auction site ComicConnect.com, a record for a comic sale. [105]
- February 23
- Death of Cuban political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo at age 42 after 85 days on hunger strike in Havana, Cuba. [57]
- February 27
- A powerful earthquake registering 6.9 strkes in the Pacific Ocean, about 80km off the southern Japanese island of Okinawa. [57] [382.A12]
- An 8.8-magnitude earthquake occurs 75 miles off the coast of central Chile, sending a tsunami felt in Hawaii. At least 708 die in Chile. The quake is felt 900 km away in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Among several aftershocks is a magnitude 6.9 quake. 1.5 million houses are damaged. A 90cm wave hits northern Japan about 24 hours later. [57] [105] [382.A12] [383.A8] [615]
- March 3
- About 300 people are killed after heavy rain causes a series of landslides in the mountainous eastern region of Bududa in Uganda. [57]
- March 6
- The president of Togo, Faure Gnassingbe, wins re-election. [57]
- March 7
- In Iraq's parliamentary elections, former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's Iraqiya coalition bloc wins 91 seats, incumbent Nuri al-Maliki's State of Law coalition wins 89, and the Iraqi National Alliance wins 70. State of Law and Iraqi National Alliance agree to form a single bloc in the next 325-seat parliament. [35] [57]
- March 8
- In eastern Turkey, a 6.0-magnitude earthquake kills at least 51 villagers. Over 40 aftershocks are recorded at up to 5.5 magnitude. [35]
- March 11
- A 6.9-magnitude earthquake hits 140km south of Valparaiso, Chile, followed by more tremors, including one with 6.7 magnitude. [57]
- Sebastian Pinera is sworn in as president of Chile. [57]
- March 13
- At least 30 people are killed and 46 wounded in four Taliban suicide bombings in the Afghan city of Kandahar. [57]
- Royal Caribbean International's Oasis of the Seas cruise ship sails from Fort Lauderdale with a record 6007 passengers. [1376.10]
- March 14
- A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits off the eastern coast of Japan, causing only light damage to structures near the epicentre. [105]
- A massive power failure plunges Chile into darkness, stretching 2,000km and affecting up to 90 percent of the population for about an hour. [57]
- March 16
- The Kasubi Tombs, Uganda's only cultural World Heritage Site, are destroyed by fire. [615]
- March 20
- Eyjafjallajokull mountain-glacier on Iceland begins small volcanic eruptions. [838.14]
- March 23
- U.S. President Barack Obama signs a landmark US$938 billion health-care reform bill in a White House ceremony. Opposition Republicans vowed to repeal the legislation, and 13 states have filed a lawsuit against the federal government over the constitutionality of the legislation. The law is said to make coverage possible for more than 30 million uninsured Americans and end discrimination by insurance companies against people with existing medical conditions. [105]
- March 24
- A car bomb explodes in the centre of the Colombian port city of Buenaventura, killing at least six people, injuring over 30. [57]
- March 26
- Near Baengyeong Island off South Korea, an explosion rips a hole in the bottom of a South Korean Navy ship, sinking it, with the loss of 46 marines. [105] [615]
- US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agree to a new nuclear arms reduction treaty. The treaty limits both sides to 1,550 warheads, a cut of 25 percent for the Americans and 30 percent for the Russians. Once the treaty is ratified, each side would have seven years to carry out the reductions. [57]
- March 29
- Two female suicide bombers kill at least 38 people on Moscow metro trains, injuring 72 others. The attack is quickly blamed on the North Caucasus. [35]
- March 31
- Anglo Irish Bank posts a 12.7 billion euro (US$17 billion) loss, the largest in Irish corporate history. [35]
- April 1
- German carmaker Daimler pleads guilty to corruption in the US and will pay US$185 million. The company paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes to foreign government officials in at least 22 countries between 1998 and 2008. [57]
- India launches a new census in which every person aged over 15 will be photographed and fingerprinted to create a biometric national database, which will then be used for national identity cards. [57]
- April 4
- Death of South African white supremacist leader Eugene Ney Terreblanche, beaten to death by two farm workers at his home in Ventersdorp, South Africa, at age 69; founder of Afrikaner Resistance Movement in 1973. [57] [535.88] [615]
- A magnitude 7.2 earthquake shakes the Mexico-Californian border area, killing two people and injuring more than 200. [35]
- April 5
- An explosion in the Upper Big Branch Mine-South coal mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia, USA kills 29 workers. [105]
- April 6
- An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 hits the Indonesian island of Sumatra, with no reports of casualties. [57]
- In India's central state of Chhattisgarh, hundreds of heavily armed Maoist rebels kill at least 75 Indian soldiers in a series of attacks on security convoys. [57] [535.45]
- April 7
- Landslides and floods from the heaviest downpours in four decades in the Rio de Janiero area of Brazil leave at least 110 people dead. [57]
- Anti-government demonstrations in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, leave 65+ dead, 500 injured. Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev flees the capital as opposition Social-Democratic Party leaders announce that they have formed a new acting government. [105] [535.43] [615]
- April 8
- US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sign a landmark nuclear arms treaty in the Czech capital, Prague. The treaty commits the countries to each reduce the number of deployed strategic warheads to 1,550, 30 percent lower than the previous ceiling. [57]
- British Airways and Spanish airline Iberia sign a deal to merge and create one of the world's biggest airline groups, to be called International Airlines Group. [57]
- Europe's Cryosat-2 spacecraft is launched aboard a Dnepr rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on a mission to map the Earth's ice cover, and successfully deployed into Earth's orbit. [57]
- The governing coalition in Sri Lanka, President Mahinda Rajapaksa's United People's Freedom Alliance, wins a majority in parliamentary elections. [57]
- April 10
- The Polish presidential Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft crashes in thick fog while attempting to land in Smolensk, Russia, killing all 96 on board, including Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria, Poland's army chief Franciszek Gagor, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Kremer, central bank governor Slawomir Skrzypek, and other officials. [105] [615] [626.234]
- A Pakistani army jet involved in operations against Taliban militants bombs a remote village in the Khyber region, killing at least 73 civilians. [57]
- April 11
- Metal detectorist Dave Crisp finds a hoard of 52,503 Roman coins in a single container in a farmer's field near Frome in Somerset, England. The coins date to about 253-293 C.E. (The hoard is later valued at 320,250 pounds (US$511,000).) [459.5] [547.92]
- April 14
- A magnitude 6.9 earthquake strikes Qinghai Province in the remote mountainous Tibetan Plateau of southwest China, killing at least 1900 people and injuring at least 12,000. [35] [57] [105] [615]
- In Iceland, a volcano buried under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier erupts, sending up a massive ash cloud that prompts the closure of airports in parts of Europe. [105] [615] [827.2] [838.14]
- April 15
- At the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, US President Barack Obama announces details of his new policy for the US space agency NASA. New spacecraft with new rocket booster systems are to be built so that by 2025 manned missions can extend beyond the Moon, and to Mars and back by the mid-2030s. New funding would amount to US$6 billion over the next five years. [57]
- April 16
- Deposed President Kurmanbek Bakiyev formally resigns in a handwritten letter sent to Kyrgyzstan's new leaders. [35]
- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges Goldman Sachs Group with fraud over its marketing of a subprime mortgage product. Goldman Sachs shares drop 12.8 percent, closing down $23.57 at $160.70 on the New York Stock Exchange. [35]
- April 20
- The Deepwater Horizon oil platform explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers. (The resulting oil spill, one of the largest in history, spreads for several months, damaging the waters and the United States coastline.) [57] [615] [1563.23]
- April 22
- The Deepwater Horizon oil rig off the Louisiana coast sinks into the Gulf of Mexico two days after an explosion tore through it. [105]
- April 23
- The X-37B unmanned military prototype spaceplane is launched atop an Atlas V rocket into orbit from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The 9m long reusable spaceplane is about one-quarter the size of the space shuttle. [57]
- April 24
- The U.S. Coast Guard discovers that an estimated 1000 barrels per day of oil is leaking from the damaged well underneath the rig that exploded off Louisiana's shore on April 20. [105]
- April 25
- Hungary's conservative opposition party Fidesz wins about 68 percent of the popular vote and 263 of 386 seats in parliament in a general election. Fidesz leader Viktor Orban is set to become prime minister. [57]
- April 26
- Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir is declared the winner of the national elections, with 68 percent of the vote. [57]
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