2010 (
MMX) is a
common year that
started on a Friday and is the current year. In the
Gregorian calendar, it is the 2010th year of the
Common Era or the
Anno Domini designation; the 10th year of the
3rd millennium and of the
21st century; and the 1st of the
2010s decade.
The United Nations has designated 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity and International Year of Youth.
Pronouncing 2010 and subsequent years
Among experts and the general public, there is a debate as to how specific years of the 21st century should be pronounced in English. The year 2010 is pronounced either "twenty ten" or "two thousand (and) ten".
Events
January
January 1 – Spain takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from Sweden.
January 1 – A
suicide bombing occurs at a
volleyball game in northwestern
Pakistan, killing at least 95, and injuring over 100.
January 4 – The tallest man-made structure to date, the
Burj Khalifa in
Dubai,
United Arab Emirates, is officially opened.
January 8 – The
Togo national football team is involved in
an attack in
Angola, and as a result withdraws from the
Africa Cup of Nations.
January 12 – A
7.0-magnitude earthquake occurs in
Haiti, devastating the nation's capital,
Port-au-Prince. With a confirmed death toll over 230,000 it is one of the
deadliest on record.
January 15 – The longest annular solar eclipse of the 3rd millennium occurs.
January 25 – Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 crashes into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after take-off from Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport, killing all 90 people on-board.
February
February 3 – The sculpture
L'Homme qui marche I by
Alberto Giacometti sells in
London for
£65 million (
US$103.7 million), setting a new world record for a work of art sold at auction.
February 12–28 – The 2010 Winter Olympics are held in Vancouver and Whistler, Canada.
February 18 – 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.
February 27 – An
8.8-magnitude earthquake occurs in
Chile, triggering a
tsunami over the
Pacific and killing 497. The earthquake is one of the
largest in recorded history.
March
March 16 – The
Kasubi Tombs,
Uganda's only cultural
World Heritage Site, are destroyed by fire.
March 23 – The
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.
April
April 7 –
Kyrgyz President
Kurmanbek Bakiyev flees
Bishkek amid fierce
rioting, sparking a sociopolitical
crisis. Former foreign minister
Roza Otunbayeva is placed at the head of an interim government as the opposition seizes control.
April 10 – The
President of Poland,
Lech Kaczyński, is among 96 killed when their airplane
crashes in western
Russia.
April 13 – A
6.9-magnitude earthquake occurs in Qinghai,
China, killing at least 2,000 and injuring more than 10,000.
April 14 –
Volcanic ash from one of
several eruptions beneath
Eyjafjallajökull, an
ice cap in
Iceland, begins to
disrupt air traffic across northern and western
Europe.
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, and prompting international debate and doubt about the practice and procedures of
offshore drilling.
April 27 –
Standard & Poor's downgrades Greece's sovereign credit rating to
junk four 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
May 2 – The
Eurozone and the
International Monetary Fund agree to a €110 billion bailout package for Greece. The package involves sharp Greek
austerity measures.
May 4 –
Nude, Green Leaves and Bust by
Pablo Picasso sells in
New York for
US$106.5 million, setting another new world record for a work of art sold at auction.
May 7 – Scientists conducting the
Neanderthal genome project announce that they have
sequenced enough of the
Neanderthal genome to suggest that Neanderthals and humans may have
interbred.
May 12 –
Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 crashes at runway at
Tripoli International Airport in
Libya, killing 103 of the 104 people on board.
May 20 – Scientists announce that they have created a functional
synthetic genome.
May 20 – Five paintings worth €100 million are stolen from the
Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
May 22 –
Air India Express Flight 812 overshoots the runway at
Mangalore International Airport in
India, killing 158 and leaving 8 survivors.
May 31 – Nine 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.
June
June 9 –
Ethnic riots in
Kyrgyzstan between
Kyrgyz and
Uzbeks results in the deaths of hundreds.
June 11 – July 11 – The 2010 FIFA World Cup is held in South Africa, and is won by Spain.
July
July 1 – Belgium takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from Spain.
July 8 – The first 24-hour flight by a
solar powered plane is completed by the
Solar Impulse.
July 25 –
Wikileaks, an online publisher of anonymous, covert, and classified material, leaks to the public
over 90,000 internal reports about the United States-led involvement in the
War in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.
July 29 – Heavy 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.
August
August 10 – The
World Health Organization declares the
H1N1 influenza pandemic over, saying worldwide flu activity has returned to typical seasonal patterns.
September
September 28 – Seven people are reported to have been killed and around 100 are missing after a
landslide in
Oaxaca,
Mexico.
October
October 10 – The Netherlands Antilles are dissolved, with the islands being split up and given a new constitutional status.
Scheduled events
October
*October 23 – The International Space Station will take the record for the longest continuous human occupation of outer space from Mir. (See List of spaceflight records).
November
*November – The first Peruvian nanosatellite, Chasqui 1 will be launched from Russia.
November 29 – December 10 – The 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference will be held in Cancún, Mexico. Also referred to as the 16th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 16), it serves too as the 6th meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 6).
December
Unknown dates
Israel will complete its West Bank barrier.
Deaths
January
January 4 – Johan Ferrier, 1st President of Suriname (born 1910)
January 4 – Tsutomu Yamaguchi, Japanese dual atomic bomb survivor (born 1916)
January 9 – Armand Razafindratandra, Malagasy cardinal (born 1925)
January 11 – Miep Gies, Dutch humanitarian (born 1909)
January 11 – Éric Rohmer, French film director (born 1920)
January 12 – Zilda Arns, Brazilian pediatrician and aid worker (born 1934)
January 13 – Teddy Pendergrass, American R&B; and soul singer (born 1950)
January 15 – Marshall Warren Nirenberg, American biologist and Nobel Prize laureate (born 1927)
January 17 – Jyoti Basu, Indian politician (born 1914)
January 17 – Erich Segal, American author, screenwriter, and educator (born 1937)
January 18 – Kate McGarrigle, Canadian folk singer (born 1946)
January 19 – Panajot Pano, Albanian footballer (born 1939)
January 22 – Iskandar of Johor, 8th King of Malaysia (born 1932)
January 22 – Jean Simmons, British actress (born 1929)
January 25 – Ali Hassan al-Majid, Iraqi politician and military commander (born 1941)
January 27 – Zelda Rubinstein, American actress and human rights activist (born 1933)
January 27 – J. D. Salinger, American author (born 1919)
January 27 – Howard Zinn, American historian (born 1922)
February
February 1 – Steingrímur Hermannsson, 19th Prime Minister of Iceland (born 1928)
February 6 – John Dankworth, British jazz musician and composer (born 1927)
February 7 – André Kolingba, 4th President of the Central African Republic (born 1936)
February 8 – John Murtha, American politician (born 1932)
February 10 – Charlie Wilson, American politician (born 1933)
February 11 – Alexander McQueen, British fashion designer (born 1969)
February 14 – Dick Francis, British author and jockey (born 1920)
February 17 – Kathryn Grayson, American singer (born 1922)
February 18 – Ariel Ramírez, Argentine composer (born 1921)
February 20 – Alexander Haig, 59th United States Secretary of State (born 1924)
March
March 3 – Michael Foot, British politician (born 1913)
March 4 – Vladislav Ardzinba, Soviet-born politician (born 1945)
March 10 – Corey Haim, Canadian actor (born 1971)
March 10 – Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy, Egyptian Muslim cleric (born 1928)
March 12 – Miguel Delibes, Spanish author and journalist (born 1920)
March 14 – Peter Graves, American actor (born 1926)
March 20 – Girija Prasad Koirala, Nepalese politician (born 1925)
March 21 – Wolfgang Wagner, German festival director (born 1919)
March 22 – James Black, British pharmacologist and Nobel Prize laureate (born 1924)
March 22 – Valentina Tolkunova, Soviet and Russian singer (born 1946)
March 24 – Robert Culp, American actor, screenwriter and director (born 1930)
March 27 – Vasily Smyslov, Soviet-Russian chess grandmaster (born 1921)
March 28 – Herb Ellis, American jazz guitarist (born 1921)
March 28 – June Havoc, Canadian-born American actress (born 1912)
March 30 – Martin Sandberger, German army officer (born 1911)
April
April 1 – John Forsythe, American actor (born 1918)
April 3 – Eugene Terre'Blanche, South African politician and white supremacist (born 1941)
April 5 – Vitali Sevastyanov, Soviet cosmonaut (born 1935)
April 6 – Corin Redgrave, British actor and political activist (born 1939)
April 8 – Malcolm McLaren, British musician and manager (born 1946)
April 8 – Abel Muzorewa, Zimbabwean politician (born 1925)
April 10 – Ryszard Kaczorowski, Polish statesman (born 1919)
April 10 – Lech Kaczyński, President of Poland (born 1949)
April 14 – Peter Steele, American musician (born 1962)
April 16 – Tomáš Špidlík, Czech cardinal (born 1919)
April 19 – Guru, American rapper (born 1966)
April 21 – Juan Antonio Samaranch, Spanish sports official (born 1920)
April 25 – Alan Sillitoe, British writer (born 1928)
April 30 – Paul Mayer, German cardinal (born 1911)
May
May 2 – Lynn Redgrave, British actress (born 1943)
May 4 – Luigi Poggi, Italian cardinal (born 1917)
May 5 – Giulietta Simionato, Italian opera singer (born 1910)
May 5 – Umaru Yar'Adua, President of Nigeria (born 1951)
May 8 – Andor Lilienthal, Hungarian chess grandmaster (born 1911)
May 9 – Lena Horne, American singer and actress (born 1917)
May 10 – Frank Frazetta, American artist (born 1928)
May 16 – Ronnie James Dio, American musician (born 1942)
May 16 – Oswaldo López Arellano, Honduran two-time former president (born 1921)
May 16 – Hank Jones, American pianist (born 1918)
May 17 – Bobbejaan Schoepen, Belgian singer (born 1925)
May 17 – Khattiya Sawasdipol, Thai army general (born 1951)
May 17 – Yvonne Loriod, French pianist (born 1924)
May 18 – Edoardo Sanguineti, Italian writer (born 1930)
May 22 – Martin Gardner, American science author (born 1914)
May 24 – Paul Gray, American musician (born 1972)
May 28 – Gary Coleman, American actor (born 1968)
May 29 – Dennis Hopper, American actor and film director (born 1936)
May 31 – Louise Bourgeois, French-born American sculptor (born 1911)
June
June 1 – Andrey Voznesensky, Soviet-Russian poet (born 1933)
June 2 – Giuseppe Taddei, Italian baritone (born 1916)
June 3 – Vladimir Arnold, Soviet-Russian mathematician (born 1937)
June 3 – Rue McClanahan, American actress (born 1934)
June 9 – Marina Semyonova, Russian ballerina (born 1908)
June 10 – Sigmar Polke, German painter and photographer (born 1941)
June 14 – Leonid Kizim, Soviet-Ukrainian cosmonaut (born 1941)
June 16 – Ronald Neame, British cinematographer, producer and director (born 1911)
June 18 – Marcel Bigeard, French military officer (born 1916)
June 18 – José Saramago, Portuguese writer and Nobel Prize laureate (born 1922)
June 19 – Manute Bol, Sudanese basketball player (born 1962)
June 23 – Mohammed Mzali, former Prime Minister of Tunisia (born 1925)
June 26 – Algirdas Brazauskas, 9th President of Lithuania (born 1932)
June 28 – Robert Byrd, American politician (born 1917)
July
July 2 – Beryl Bainbridge, British novelist (born 1934)
July 3 – Abu Daoud, Palestinian militia commander (born 1937)
July 4 – Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanese spiritual leader (born 1935)
July 5 – Cesare Siepi, Italian opera singer (born 1923)
July 12 – Harvey Pekar, American comic book writer (born 1939)
July 14 – Charles Mackerras, Australian conductor (born 1925)
July 17 – Bernard Giraudeau, French actor and film director (born 1947)
July 21 – Luis Corvalán, Chilean politician (born 1916)
July 24 – Alex Higgins, Northern Irish snooker player (born 1949)
August
August 5 – Godfrey Binaisa, 5th President of Uganda (born 1920)
August 6 – Tony Judt, British historian (born 1948)
August 7 – Bruno Cremer, French actor (born 1929)
August 8 – Patricia Neal, American actress (born 1926)
August 9 – Ted Stevens, American politician (born 1923)
August 10 – Antonio Pettigrew, American athlete (born 1967)
August 12 – Guido de Marco, 6th President of Malta (born 1931)
August 16 – Nicola Cabibbo, French physicist (born 1935)
August 17 – Francesco Cossiga, 63rd Prime Minister and 8th President of Italy (born 1928)
August 18 – Carlos Hugo of Bourbon-Parma, Spanish aristrocrat (born 1930)
August 22 – Stjepan Bobek, Yugoslav footballer (born 1923)
August 23 – Satoshi Kon, Japanese anime film director (born 1963)
August 26 – Raimon Panikkar, Spanish theologian (born 1918)
August 27 – Anton Geesink, Dutch judoka (born 1934)
August 28 – Sinan Hasani, 10th President of Yugoslavia (born 1922)
August 30 – Alain Corneau, French filmmaker (born 1943)
August 30 – Francisco Varallo, Argentine footballer (born 1910)
August 31 – Laurent Fignon, French road bicycle racer (born 1960)
September
September 9 – Bent Larsen, Danish chess grandmaster (born 1935)
September 11 – Kevin McCarthy, American actor (born 1914)
September 12 – Claude Chabrol, French film director (born 1930)
September 22 – Eddie Fisher, American entertainer and singer (born 1928)
September 24 – Gennady Yanayev, Soviet politician (born 1937)
September 26 – Gloria Stuart, American actress (born 1910)
September 28 – Arthur Penn, American film director (born 1922)
September 29 – Georges Charpak, French physicist (born 1924)
September 29 – Tony Curtis, American actor (born 1925)
September 30 – Stephen J. Cannell, American writer and television producer (born 1941)
October
October 4 – Norman Wisdom, British actor and comedian (born 1915)
October 7 – Milka Planinc, Yugoslav politician (born 1924)
October 10 – Solomon Burke, American soul musician (born 1940)
October 11 – Joan Sutherland, Australian opera singer (born 1926)
Awards
Chemistry – Richard F. Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki
Economics – Peter A. Diamond, Dale T. Mortensen and Christopher A. Pissarides
Literature – Mario Vargas Llosa
Peace – Liu Xiaobo
Physics – Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov
Physiology or Medicine – Robert G. Edwards
Major holidays
January 1 – New Year's Day.
January 7 (6 in Armenia) – Orthodox Christmas.
February 1 – Imbolc, a Cross-quarter day (Celebrated on February 2 in some places).
February 2 – Candlemas commemorating the Purification of the Virgin. It marks the liturgical end of the Christmas season.
February 14 – Chinese New Year.
February 16 – Shrove Tuesday / Mardi Gras, end of Mardi Gras / Carnival season.
February 17 – Ash Wednesday (first day of Lent).
March 1 – Holi.
March 20 (21 in the Far East) – Vernal Equinox, also known as Nowruz.
March 24 – Rama Navami.
March 29 (evening) – Passover.
March 30 – Hanuman Jayanti.
April 4 –
Easter (
Western and
Orthodox).
May 1 – Beltane, a Cross-quarter day.
May 18–19 – Shavuot.
August 1 – Lammas, a Cross-quarter day.
August 11 – Ramadan begins.
August 24 – Raksha Bandhan.
September 2 – Krishna Janmashtami.
September 8–10 – Rosh Hashanah.
September 10 – Eid ul-Fitr.
September 17–18 – Yom Kippur.
September 22–29/30 – Sukkot.
September 23 – Autumnal Equinox, also known as Mabon.
November 5 – Diwali.
November 16–19 – Eid al-Adha.
December 25 – Western Christmas.
In fiction
Film
*2010 (1984)
(2002)
Absolon (2003)
Zebraman (2004)
District 13 (2004)
District 9 (2009)
Literature
*Stand on Zanzibar (1968) by John Brunner
(1982) by Arthur C. Clarke.
Tracy Hickman, The Immortals (1996)
The Mayflower Project (2001) by K.A. Applegate.
In the Presence of Mine Enemies (2003) by Harry Turtledove.
"" (1999) by Stephen Baxter - party of the storyline starts in September 2010
Music
*The Pearl Jam song "Do the Evolution" references the world in 2010: "I crawled the earth, but now I'm higher. 2010, watch it go to fire."
The Bad Religion song "Ten in 2010" appears on their album The Gray Race.
The 2008 Enya song "My! My! Time Flies!" concludes with the lyrics, "Could be we step out again/Could be tomorrow but then/Could be two thousand and ten."
Television
*April 29 – Date of visons of Global Blackout from TV series Flash Forward
Knight Rider 2010 (1994 TV movie)
Maico 2010 (1998)
The Simpsons episode "Lisa's Wedding", from the 6th season, takes place in 2010.
A Stargate SG-1 episode called "2010" took place in that year. (2001)
Code Geass Britannia's invasion of Japan takes place on 10 August 2010.
Eden of the East The missile attacks on Japan take place on 22 November 2010.
Doctor Who - Series 5 (2010) episodes The Eleventh Hour, Amy's Choice, the end of Vincent and the Doctor, The Lodger and The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang are set mainly in this year.
Video games
*In the SimCity franchise the Scenarios Vol. I: Great Disasters, in SimCity 2000, there is a nuclear meltdown in Boston and Silicon Valley which is set in 2010.
is a futuristic spinoff of the original Street Fighter released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990.
(1998): The last level, titled Reptar 2010, is set in 2010.
Dino Crisis 2, the sequel to the 1999 game, released in 2000.
(2004): is set in 2010
(2008): The whole game is set in August 2010 in Venezuela.
References
![Mortal Kombat E3 2010 Announcement Trailer [HD]](http://web.archive.org./web/20101230213629im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/is33FDaqID0/2.jpg "Mortal Kombat E3 2010 Announcement Trailer [HD]")
![Spiderman Shattered Dimensions E3 2010 Trailer [HD]](http://web.archive.org./web/20101230213629im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/90BmP93b1pQ/2.jpg "Spiderman Shattered Dimensions E3 2010 Trailer [HD]")
![Predators 2010 Movie Trailer [HD]](http://web.archive.org./web/20101230213629im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/igKKWJw88Kk/2.jpg "Predators 2010 Movie Trailer [HD]")
![Need for Speed Hot Pursuit E3 2010 Debut Trailer [HD]](http://web.archive.org./web/20101230213629im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/5imMoYoSwXc/2.jpg "Need for Speed Hot Pursuit E3 2010 Debut Trailer [HD]")
![UFC 2010 Undisputed Debut Trailer [HD]](http://web.archive.org./web/20101230213629im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/6gAKJmKtO9k/2.jpg "UFC 2010 Undisputed Debut Trailer [HD]")
