2011 (MMXI) was a common year that started on a Saturday in the Gregorian calendar. It was the 2011th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations; the 11th year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century; and the 2nd of the 2010s.

The United Nations designated 2011 as the International Year of Forests and the International Year of Chemistry.

Events

January

January 1 – Estonia officially adopts the Euro currency and becomes the seventeenth Eurozone country. January 4 – Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi dies after setting himself on fire a month earlier, sparking anti-government protests in Tunisia and later other Arab nations. These protests become known collectively as the Arab Spring. January 9–15 – Southern Sudan holds a referendum on independence. The Sudanese electorate votes in favour of independence, paving the way for the creation of the new state in July. January 11 – Flooding and mudslides in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro kills 903. January 14 – Arab Spring: The Tunisian government falls after a month of increasingly violent protests; President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali flees to Saudi Arabia after 23 years in power. January 24 – 37 people are killed and more than 180 others wounded in a bombing at Domodedovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia.

February

February 11 – Arab Spring: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigns after widespread protests calling for his departure, leaving control of Egypt in the hands of the military until a general election can be held. February 22 - March 14 – Uncertainty over Libyan oil output causes crude oil prices to rise 20% over a two-week period following the Arab Spring, causing the 2011 energy crisis.

March

March 11 – A 9.1-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the east of Japan, killing 15,840 and leaving another 3,926 missing. Tsunami warnings are issued in 50 countries and territories. Emergencies are declared at four nuclear power plants affected by the quake. March 15 – Arab Spring: Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, King of Bahrain declares a three-month state of emergency as troops from the Gulf Co-operation Council are sent to quell the civil unrest. March 17 – Arab Spring and the 2011 Libyan civil war: The United Nations Security Council votes 10-0 to create a no-fly zone over Libya in response to allegations of government aggression against civilians. March 19 – Arab Spring and the Libyan civil war: In light of continuing attacks on Libyan rebels by forces in support of leader Muammar Gaddafi, military intervention authorized under UNSCR 1973 begins as French fighter jets make reconnaissance flights over Libya.

April

April 11 – Former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo is arrested in his home in Abidjan by supporters of elected President Alassane Ouattara with support from French forces thereby ending the 2010–2011 Ivorian crisis and civil war. April 29 – An estimated two billion people watch the wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey in London.

May

May 1 – U.S. President Barack Obama announces that Osama bin Laden, the founder and leader of the militant group Al-Qaeda, has been killed during an American military operation in Pakistan. May 16 – The European Union agree to €78 billion rescue deal for Portugal. The bailout loan will be equally split between the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism, the European Financial Stability Facility, and the International Monetary Fund. May 26 – Former Bosnian Serb Army commander Ratko Mladić, wanted for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, is arrested in Serbia.

June

June 4 – Chile's Puyehue volcano erupts, causing air traffic cancellations across South America, New Zealand, Australia and forcing over 3,000 people to evacuate.

June 5 – Arab Spring: Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh travels to Saudi Arabia for treatment of an injury sustained during an attack on the presidential palace. Protesters celebrate his transfer of power to his Vice-President Abd al-Rab Mansur al-Hadi. June 12 – Arab Spring: Thousands of Syrians flee to Turkey as Syrian troops lay siege to Jisr ash-Shugur.

July

July 7 – The world's first artificial organ transplant is achieved, using an artificial windpipe coated with stem cells. July 9 – South Sudan secedes from Sudan, per the result of the independence referendum held in January.

July 20

Goran Hadžić is detained in Serbia, becoming the last of 161 people indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

The United Nations declares a famine in southern Somalia, the first in over thirty years.

July 21 – Space Shuttle Atlantis lands successfully at Kennedy Space Center after completing STS-135, concluding NASA's space shuttle program. July 22 – 76 people are killed in twin terrorist attacks in Norway after a bombing in the Regjeringskvartalet government center in Oslo and a shooting at a political youth camp on the island of Utøya.

July 31

In Thailand over 12.8 million people are affected by severe flooding. The World Bank estimates damages at 1,440 billion baht (US$45 billion). Some areas are still six - feet underwater, and many factory areas remained closed, at the end of the year. 790 people are killed, with 58 of the country's 77 provinces affected.

Arab Spring: Because of the uncertaintities associated with a clamp-down of the free press, there is believed to be at least 121 people killed in a Syrian Army tank raid on the town of Hama and over 150 people are reportedly killed across the country. The total dead throughout Syria may never be known, but an estimate as of September 24 is 3,000.

August

August 5

* NASA announces that its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured photographic evidence of possible liquid water on Mars during warm seasons.

Juno, the first solar-powered spacecraft on a mission to Jupiter, is launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

August 20–28 – Arab Spring and the Libyan civil war: In the Battle of Tripoli, Libyan rebels take control the nation's capital, effectively overthrowing the government of Muammar Gaddafi.

September

September 5 – India and Bangladesh sign a pact to end their 40-year border demarcation dispute. September 10 – Zanzibar ferry sinking: The ''MV Spice Islander I'', carrying at least 800 people, sinks off the coast of Zanzibar, killing 240 people. September 12 – Approximately 100 people die after a petrol pipeline explodes in Nairobi. September 17 – Occupy Wall Street protests begin in the United States. This develops into the Occupy movement which spreads to 82 countries by October. September 19 – With 434 dead, the United Nations launches a $357 million appeal for victims of the 2011 Sindh floods in Pakistan.

October

October 4

2011 Mogadishu bombing: 100 people are killed in a car bombing in the Somali capital Mogadishu.

The death toll from the flooding of Cambodia's Mekong River and attendant flash floods reaches 207.

October 18 – Israel and the Palestinian militant organization Hamas begin a major prisoner swap, in which the captured Israeli Army soldier Gilad Shalit is released by Hamas in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian and Israeli-Arab prisoners held in Israel, including 280 prisoners serving life sentences for planning and perpetrating terror attacks.

October 20

Arab Spring and the Libyan civil war: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is killed in Sirte, with National Transitional Council forces taking control of the city, and ending the war.

Basque separatist militant organisation ETA declares an end to its 43-year campaign of political violence, which has killed over 800 people since 1968.

October 23 – A magnitude 7.2 M_w earthquake jolted eastern Turkey near the city of Van, killing 604 people, and damaging about 2,200 buildings. October 27 – After an emergency meeting in Brussels, the European Union announced an agreement to tackle the European sovereign debt crisis which includes a writedown of 50% of Greek bonds, a recapitalisation of European banks and an increase of the bailout fund of the European Financial Stability Facility totaling to €1 trillion.

October 31

Date selected by the UN as the symbolic date when global population reaches seven billion.

UNESCO admitted Palestine as a member, following a vote in which 107 member states supported and 14 opposed.

November

November 26 – The Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity, the most elaborate Martian exploration vehicle to date, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center. It is slated to land on Mars on August 5, 2012.

December

December 15 – The United States formally declares an end to the Iraq War. December 16 – Tropical Storm Washi causes 1,257 flash flood fatalities in the Philippines with 85 people officially listed as missing. December 29 – Samoa and Tokelau move from east to west of the International Date Line, thereby skipping December 30, in order to align their time zones better with their main trading partners.

Deaths

January

January 2

* Anne Francis, American actress (b. 1930)

* Pete Postlethwaite, British actor (b. 1946)

* Richard Winters, American paratrooper (b. 1918)

January 4

* Prince Ali-Reza Pahlavi of Iran (b. 1966)

* Gerry Rafferty, Scottish musician (b. 1947)

January 15

* Nat Lofthouse, English footballer (b. 1925)

* Susannah York, British actress (b. 1939)

January 18 – Sargent Shriver, American politician and diplomat (b. 1915)

January 21 – Dennis Oppenheim, American artist (b. 1938)

January 24 – Bernd Eichinger, German film producer and director (b. 1949)

January 29 – Milton Babbitt, American composer (b. 1916)

January 30 – John Barry, English composer (b. 1933)

February

February 3 – Maria Schneider, French actress (b. 1952)

February 5 – Brian Jacques, British author (b. 1939)

February 6

* Josefa Iloilo, 3rd President of Fiji (b. 1920)

* Gary Moore, Irish musician (b. 1952)

February 8 – Cesare Rubini, Italian basketball player and coach (b. 1923)

February 14 – George Shearing, British-American jazz pianist (b. 1919)

February 27 – Necmettin Erbakan, 25th Prime Minister of Turkey (b. 1926)

February 28 – Jane Russell, American actress (b. 1921)

March

March 4

* Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, 30th Prime Minister of Nepal (b. 1924)

* Simon van der Meer, Dutch Nobel physicist (b. 1925)

March 5 – Alberto Granado, Cuban writer and scientist (b. 1922)

March 6 – Ján Popluhár, Slovak footballer (b. 1935)

March 15 – Nate Dogg, American rapper (b. 1969)

March 17 – Michael Gough, British actor (b. 1916)

March 18 – Warren Christopher, American diplomat (b. 1925)

March 21 – Nikolai Andrianov, Soviet-Russian gymnast (b. 1952)

March 23 – Elizabeth Taylor, British-American actress (b. 1932)

March 26

* Paul Baran, Polish-American computer engineer (b. 1926)

* Geraldine Ferraro, American politician (b. 1935)

* Diana Wynne Jones, British writer (b. 1934)

March 27 – Farley Granger, American actor (b. 1925)

March 29 – José Alencar, Brazilian politician (b. 1931)

April

April 5

* Baruch Samuel Blumberg, American physician (b. 1925)

* Ange-Félix Patassé, 5th President of the Central African Republic (b. 1937)

April 9 – Sidney Lumet, American film director (b. 1924)

April 14 – William Lipscomb, American chemist (b. 1919)

April 19 – Grete Waitz, Norwegian athlete (b. 1953)

April 24 – Sathya Sai Baba, Indian spiritual leader (b. 1926)

April 30 – Ernesto Sabato, Argentine writer (b. 1911)

May

May 2 – Osama bin Laden, Saudi-born leader of Al-Qaeda (b. 1957)

May 3 – Jackie Cooper, American actor (b. 1922)

May 7

* Seve Ballesteros, Spanish golfer (b. 1957)

* Willard Boyle, Canadian Nobel physicist (b. 1924)

May 9 – Lidia Gueiler Tejada, 67th President of Bolivia (b. 1921)

May 16 – Samuel Wanjiru, Kenyan athlete (b. 1986)

May 19 – Garret FitzGerald, 7th Taoiseach of Ireland (b. 1926)

May 20 – Randy Savage, American professional wrestler (b. 1952)

May 27

* Jeff Conaway, American actor (b. 1950)

* Gil Scott-Heron, American poet and musician (b. 1949)

May 29

* Sergei Bagapsh, Georgian-born politician (b. 1949)

* Ferenc Mádl, 2nd President of Hungary (b. 1931)

May 30 – Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, American physicist (b. 1921)

May 31 – Pauline Betz, American tennis player (b. 1919)

June

June 3 – Jack Kevorkian, American euthanasia advocate (b. 1928)

June 4 – Lawrence Eagleburger, American diplomat (b. 1930)

June 7 – Jorge Semprún, Spanish writer and politician (b. 1923)

June 9 – M.F. Hussain, Indian painter (b. 1915)

June 10 – Patrick Leigh Fermor, British travel writer, scholar and soldier (b. 1915)

June 18

* Frederick Chiluba, 2nd President of Zambia (b. 1943)

* Clarence Clemons, American musician and actor (b. 1942)

June 23 – Peter Falk, American actor (b. 1927)

July

July 2 – Itamar Franco, 37th President of Brazil (b. 1930)

July 4 – Archduke Otto of Austria (b. 1912)

July 5 – Cy Twombly, American painter (b. 1928)

July 8 – Betty Ford, American feminist, activist, and philanthropist (b. 1918)

July 10 – Roland Petit, French choreographer and dancer (b. 1924)

July 12 – Tom Gehrels, American astronomer (b. 1925)

July 17 – Juan Maria Bordaberry, 36th President of Uruguay (b. 1928)

July 20 – Lucian Freud, German-born British painter (b. 1922)

July 23

* Robert Ettinger, American academic (b. 1918)

* Nguyen Cao Ky, 8th Prime Minister of the Republic of Vietnam (b. 1930)

* Amy Winehouse, British singer (b. 1983)

July 25 – Mihalis Kakogiannis, Cypriot filmmaker (b. 1922)

July 28 – Abdul Fatah Younis, Libyan army commander (b. 1944)

July 30 – Mario Echandi Jiménez, 47th President of Costa Rica (b. 1915)

August

August 2 – Baruj Benacerraf, Venezuelan-born American Nobel immunologist (b. 1920)

August 3 – Bubba Smith, American football player and actor (b. 1945)

August 7

* Harri Holkeri, 57th Prime Minister of Finland (b. 1937)

* Nancy Wake, New Zealand-born French Resistance fighter (b. 1912)

August 14 – Shammi Kapoor, Indian film actor and director (b. 1931)

August 16 – Andrej Bajuk, 3rd Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia (b. 1943)

August 19 – Raúl Ruiz, Chilean film director (b. 1941)

August 22 – Jack Layton, Canadian politician (b. 1950)

August 31 – Valery Rozhdestvensky, Soviet-Russian cosmonaut (b. 1939)

September

September 7

* Pavol Demitra, Slovakian hockey player (b. 1974)

* Stefan Liv, Polish-born Swedish hockey player (b. 1980)

* Ruslan Salei, Belarusian hockey player (b. 1974)

* Kārlis Skrastiņš, Latvian hockey player (b. 1974)

September 10 – Cliff Robertson, American actor (b. 1923)

September 11 – Andy Whitfield, Welsh actor and model (b. 1972)

September 13 – Richard Hamilton, British painter and collage artist (b. 1922)

September 14 – Rudolf Mössbauer, German Nobel physicist (b. 1929)

September 19 – George Cadle Price, 1st Prime Minister of Belize (b. 1919)

September 20 – Burhanuddin Rabbani, President of Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996 (b. 1940)

September 22 – Aristides Pereira, 1st President of Cape Verde (b. 1923)

September 25 – Wangari Maathai, Kenyan veterinary anatomist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate (b. 1940)

September 27 – Imre Makovecz, Hungarian architect (b. 1935)

September 30

* Anwar al-Awlaki, American-born terrorist and Islamist militant (b. 1971)

* Ralph M. Steinman, Canadian Nobel immunologist and cell biologist (b. 1943)

October

October 1 – Sven Tumba, Swedish hockey player (b. 1931)

October 5

* Steve Jobs, American computer engineer (b. 1955)

* Charles Napier, American actor (b. 1936)

October 6 – Diane Cilento, Australian actress (b. 1933)

October 7 – Ramiz Alia, 1st President of Albania (b. 1925)

October 12 – Dennis Ritchie, American computer scientist (b. 1941)

October 16 – Dan Wheldon, English racing car driver (b. 1978)

October 20 – Muammar Gaddafi, Libyan leader (b. 1942)

October 22 – Sultan, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia (b. 1930)

October 23

* Herbert A. Hauptman, American mathematician and Nobel laureate in chemistry (b. 1917)

* Marco Simoncelli, Italian motorcycle road racer (b. 1987)

October 24 – John McCarthy, American computer scientist (b. 1927)

October 31 – Flórián Albert, Hungarian footballer (b. 1941)

November

November 4 – Alfonso Cano, Colombian militant leader (b. 1948)

November 5 – Norman Foster Ramsey, Jr., American Nobel physicist (b. 1915)

November 7 – Joe Frazier, American boxer (b. 1944)

November 9 – Har Gobind Khorana, Indian-born American Nobel biochemist (b. 1922)

November 21 – Anne McCaffrey, American writer (b. 1926)

November 22 – Paul Motian, American jazz drummer (b. 1931)

November 25 – Vasily Alekseyev, Soviet-Russian weightlifter (b. 1942)

November 27

* Ken Russell, British film director (b. 1927)

* Gary Speed, Welsh footballer and coach (b. 1969)

November 28

* Ante Marković, 9th Prime Minister of SFR Yugoslavia (b. 1924)

* Charles Thomas Kowal, American astronomer (b. 1940)

December

December 1 – Christa Wolf, German writer (b. 1929)

December 4 – Sócrates, Brazilian footballer (b. 1954)

December 5 – Violetta Villas, Polish singer (b. 1938)

December 7 – Harry Morgan, American actor (b. 1915)

December 8 – Sir Zelman Cowan, 19th Governor-General of Australia (b. 1919)

December 14 – Joe Simon, American comic book writer and artist (b. 1913)

December 15 – Christopher Hitchens, British-American writer (b. 1949)

December 17

* Cesária Évora, Cape Verdean singer (b. 1941)

* Kim Jong-il, Supreme Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (b. 1941)

December 18 – Václav Havel, Czech playwright, 10th President of Czechoslovakia and 1st President of the Czech Republic (b. 1936)

December 24 – Johannes Heesters, Dutch actor and singer (b. 1903)

December 27

* Clifford Darling, 4th Governor-General of the Bahamas (b. 1922)

* Helen Frankenthaler, American abstract expressionist painter (b. 1928)

Nobel Prizes

Chemistry – Dan Shechtman Economics – Christopher A. Sims and Thomas J. Sargent Literature – Tomas Tranströmer Peace – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakel Karman Physics – Saul Perlmutter, Adam G. Riess, and Brian P. Schmidt Physiology or Medicine – Bruce A. Beutler, Jules A. Hoffmann, and Ralph M. Steinman

Major religious holidays

January 7 (6 in Armenia) – Orthodox Christmas

February 1 – Imbolc, a Cross-quarter day

March 8 – Shrove Tuesday / Mardi Gras, end of Mardi Gras / Carnival season

March 9 – Ash Wednesday (first day of Lent)

March 20 – Holi

March 21 – (Northern hemisphere) Vernal equinox, also known as Ostara & Persian New Year

April 18 – Passover begins at sundown

April 24 – Easter (''Western'' and ''Orthodox'')

May 1 – Beltane, a Cross-quarter day

June 7 – Shavuot begins

August 1

* Ramadan begins (Islam)

* Lammas, a Cross-quarter day

August 31 – Eid al-Fitr

September 1 – Ganesh Chaturthi

September 11 – Anant Chaturdashi

September 23 – (Northern hemisphere) Autumnal equinox, also known as Mabon

September 28 – Rosh Hashana begins at sundown

October 2 to October 6 – Durga Puja

October 7 – Yom Kippur begins at sundown

October 26 – Diwali, a religious holiday in Hinduism

November 6 – Eid al-Adha

November 26 – Islamic New Year

December 20 – Hanukkah begins at sundown

December 25 – Christmas

In fiction

References

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