Year 2006
Events
January
January 1 – Russia cuts the shipment of natural gas to Ukraine over 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 space mission to Pluto as a rocket
hurls the New Horizons spacecraft on a nine-year journey.
January 25 – The Walt Disney Company buys Pixar Animation Studios from
Lucasfilm Ltd. for $7.4 billion and now Pixar is a subsidiary of Walt
Disney Pictures.
February
February 3 – 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 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.
March
March 9 – NASA's Cassini–Huygens spacecraft discovers geysers of a
liquid substance shooting from Saturn's moon Enceladus, signaling a
possible presence of water.
March 10 – NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter enters orbit around Mars.
March 15 – The United Nations General Assembly votes overwhelmingly to
establish the United Nations Human Rights Council.
March 28 – A scramjet jet engine, HyShot III, designed to fly at seven
times the speed of sound, is successfully tested at Woomera, South
Australia.
April
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 last chromosome
sequence, in Nature.
May 27 – The 6.4 Mw Yogyakarta earthquake shakes central Java with an
MSK intensity of IX (Destructive), leaving more than 5,700 dead and
37,000 injured.
June
June 3 – Montenegro declares independence after a May 21 referendum. Two
days later, the republic of Serbia and Montenegro formed in 2003
collapses, leaving Serbia as the successor country.
June 9 – July 9 – The 2006 FIFA World Cup takes place in Germany; which
is won by Italy.
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 launches a trial operation, making
Tibet the last province-level entity of China to have 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 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, demoting Pluto to the status of dwarf planet more
than 70 years after its discovery.
September
September 19 – The Royal Thai Army overthrows the government of Prime
Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a coup d'état.
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 6 – Fredrik Reinfeldt replaces Göran Persson as Prime Minister
of Sweden.
October 9 – North Korea claims to have conducted its first-ever nuclear
test.
October 13 – South Korean Ban Ki-moon is elected as the new
Secretary-General of the United Nations, succeeding Kofi Annan.
November
November 2 – No. 5, 1948 by Jackson Pollock becomes the most expensive
painting after it is sold privately for $140 million.
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 12 – The breakaway state of South Ossetia holds a referendum on
independence from Georgia.
November 15 – The Playstation 3 released
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 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 26 – An oil pipeline explodes in Nigeria's commercial capital,
Lagos, killing at least 200 people.
December 29 – UK settles its Anglo-American loan, post-WWII loan debt.
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