2008 CE
From left to right, top to bottom:; Terrorist attacks in Mumbai kill 166 people and injure more than 300 people; The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers occurs during the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession; it is also known as the climax of the crisis; The Russo-Georgian War took place between Russia and Georgia; An earthquake in Sichuan, China kills 88,000; The 2008 Summer Olympics took place in Beijing, China; Cyclone Nargis kills 138,000 people in Myanmar; The one million voices against FARC civic mobilizations in different parts of the world under the slogan Colombia soy yo; The Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill, a major environmental disaster that occurred in Roane County, Tennessee; The 2008 Tibetan unrest, a series of protests and demonstrations against Chinese rule in Tibet.
Geopolitics & Diplomacy
- January 24 – A peace deal is signed in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, ending the Kivu conflict.source
- February 17 – Kosovo formally declares independence from Serbia, to a mixed response from the international community.source
- March 8 – Barisan Nasional loses two-thirds majority, for the first time since 1969, to opposition during the 2008 Malaysian general election but still retains control of government. The coalition also loses majority control of five states to the opposition.source
- March 24 – Bhutan holds its first-ever general elections following the adoption of a new Constitution which changed the country from an absolute monarchy to a multiparty democracy.source
- May 21 – The Union of South American Nations, an intergovernmental organization between states in South America, is founded.source
- May 21 – The International Court of Justice awards Middle Rocks to Malaysia and Pedra Branca to Singapore, ending a 29-year territorial dispute between the two countries.source
- May 28 – The Legislature Parliament of Nepal votes overwhelmingly in favor of abolishing the country's 240-year-old monarchy, turning the country into a republic.source
- June 11 – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper formally apologizes, on behalf of the Canadian government, to the country's First Nations for the Canadian Indian residential school system.source
- August 1 – India and United States sign the historic Civil Nuclear deal.source
- November 4 – 2008 United States presidential election: Democratic U.S. Senator Barack Obama defeats Republican candidate John McCain and is elected the 44th President of the United States, making him the first African-American to be elected to the office.source
- December 10 – The Channel Island of Sark, a British Crown dependency, holds its first fully democratic elections under a new constitutional arrangement, becoming the last European territory to abolish feudalism.source
Conflict & Security
- February 4 – Civic mobilizations in Colombia against FARC, under the name One million voices against FARC.source
- March 2 – Venezuela and Ecuador move troops to the Colombian border, following a Colombian raid against FARC guerrillas inside Ecuadorian territory, in which senior commander Raúl Reyes is killed.source
- March 10 – Protests in Tibet against China's treatment of Tibetans begin.source
- March 25 – African Union and Comoros forces invade the rebel-held island of Anjouan, returning the island to Comorian control.source
- May 21 – Manchester United wins their third European Cup and second Champions League after they beat Chelsea in the first all-English final in the history of the competition. Manchester United won the match 6–5 on penalties, following a 1–1 draw after extra time.source
- May 30 – International Convention on Cluster Munitions is adopted in Dublin.source
- July 1 – Riots erupt in Mongolia in response to allegations of fraud surrounding the 2008 legislative elections.source
- July 2 – Íngrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages are rescued from FARC rebels by Colombian security forces.source
- August 6 – President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi of Mauritania is deposed in a military coup d'état.source
- August 7 – Georgia intervenes against Russian-backed separatists in its South-Ossetia and Abkhazia regions, causing Russia to invade Georgia and spark the Russo-Georgian war, the first major European land war of the 21st century.source
- October 6 – A controversial Peruvian tape regarding a Norwegian oil company causes the 2008 Peru oil scandal, sparking protests which cause Jorge de Castillo to resign from office.source
- December 6 – The police shooting of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropulos lead to riots across Greece.source
- December 27 – Israel invades the Gaza Strip, in response to rockets being fired into Israeli territory by Hamas, and due to weapons being smuggled into the area.source
Exploration & Expansion
Economy & Finance
- January 1 – Cyprus and Malta adopt the euro currency.source
- January 21 – Stock markets around the world plunge amid growing fears of a U.S. Great Recession, fueled by the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis.source
- September 15 – 2008 financial crisis: Stocks fall sharply Monday on a triptych of Wall Street woe: Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy filing, Merrill Lynch's acquisition by Bank of America, and AIG's unprecedented request for short-term financing from the Federal Reserve.source
- October 3 – 2008 financial crisis: U.S. President George W. Bush signs the revised Emergency Economic Stabilization Act into law, creating a 700 billion dollar Treasury fund to purchase failing bank assets.source
Technology & Infrastructure
- June 14 – Expo 2008 opens in Zaragoza, Spain, lasting to September 14, with the topic "Water and sustainable development".source
- July 10 – Apple Inc. launches the App Store with 500 apps available at launch.source
- August 1 – China opens its first high speed rail line.source
- September 23 – HTC Dream, the first smartphone powered by Android, was launched.source
- October 13 – Microsoft announces the name Windows 7 to the public.source
- November 30 - İzmir Wildlife Park has opened.source
Science & Discovery
- January 14 – At 19:04:39 UTC, the uncrewed MESSENGER space probe is at its closest approach during its first flyby of the planet Mercury.source
- March 9 – The first European Space Agency Automated Transfer Vehicle, a cargo spacecraft for the International Space Station, launches from Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana.source
- March 19 – An Energy release of a Gamma-ray burst called the GRB 080319B is the brightest event ever recorded in the Universe.source
- May 2 – Iron Man is released in theaters, starting the Marvel Cinematic Universe.source
- May 25 – NASA's uncrewed Phoenix spacecraft becomes the first to land on the northern polar region of Mars.source
- June 11 – The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is launched.source
- September 10 – The proton beam is circulated for the first time in the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, located at CERN, near Geneva, under the Franco-Swiss border.source
- September 16 – The first two ten-million-digit primes, M 43,112,609 and M 37,156,667 , discovered on August 23 and September 6, respectively, are officially revealed.source
- September 28 – SpaceX Falcon 1 becomes the world's first privately developed space launch vehicle to successfully make orbit.source
- October 21 – The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is officially inaugurated at Geneva.source
- October 22 – The Indian Space Research Organisation successfully launches the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft on a lunar exploration mission.source
- November 1 – Satoshi Nakamoto publishes "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System".source
- November 20 – The Buzzard Coulee meteorite falls in Saskatchewan. Reported to be 5 times brighter than the full moon and is seen in Alberta, Manitoba, and even North Dakota.source
- December 31 – An extra leap second (23:59:60) is added to end of the year. The last time this occurred was in 2005.source
Health & Medicine
- November 19 – Claudia Castillo of Spain becomes the first person to have a successful trachea transplant using a tissue-engineered organ.source
Crime & Justice
- February 18 – WikiLeaks releases allegations of illegal activities carried out by the Cayman Islands branch of Swiss banking corporation Julius Baer; a subsequent lawsuit against WikiLeaks prompts a temporary suspension of the website, but uproar about violations of freedom of speech causes WikiLeaks to be brought back online.source
- April 29 – Grand Theft Auto IV is released worldwide, selling over 3.6 million units and earning $310 million during the first day, becoming not only the highest grossing video game release of all time, but also the highest grossing entertainment product release ever.source
- May 12 – The mummified body of Hedviga Golik is found in her apartment in Zagreb, Croatia 42 years after her death.source
- July 11 – South Korea suspends all trips to North Korea's Mount Kumgang after a 53-year-old South Korean tourist is shot and killed by a North Korean sentry.source
- July 21 – Radovan Karadžić, the first president of the Republika Srpska, is arrested in Belgrade, Serbia, on allegations of war crimes, following a 12-year-long manhunt.source
- November 26–29 – 2008 Mumbai attacks: Ten terrorists of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based terror group, carry out four days of coordinated bombing and shooting attacks across Mumbai, killing 166 people. One terrorist, Ajmal Kasab, was captured alive and executed in 2012.source
- December 11 – Bernard Madoff is arrested for securities fraud after he was turned in by his sons for operating the largest Ponzi scheme in history, later known as the Madoff investment scandal.source
- December 18 – The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda finds Théoneste Bagosora and two other senior Rwandan army officers guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes and sentences them to life imprisonment for their role in the Rwandan genocide.source
Disasters & Accidents
- February 14 – A Belavia CRJ-100 crash lands at Zvartnots International Airport in Yerevan, Armenia. 7 people are injured.source
- April 19 – The Quito Ultratumba nightclub fire in Quito, Ecuador, kills 19 people and injures at least 24 more.source
- June 21 – The Princess of the Stars, a passenger ferry owned by Filipino shipping company Sulpicio Lines, capsizes and sinks off the coast of San Fernando, Romblon, at the height of Typhoon Fengshen, resulting in 814 deaths.source
- August 20 – Spanair Flight 5022 crashes at Madrid–Barajas Airport, killing 154 people on board.source
- September 12 – A train collision occurred in Chatsworth, California, when a Metrolink train and Union Pacific local collided head-on.source
- September 20 – A suicide truck bomb explosion destroys the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing at least 54 and injuring 266.source
- December 22 – An ash dike ruptured at a solid waste containment area for a Tennessee Valley Authority coal-fired power plant in Roane County, Tennessee, releasing 1.1 e9USgal e6m3 of coal fly ash slurry in the largest industrial spill in U.S. history.source
Climate & Environment
- May 3 – Cyclone Nargis passes through Myanmar, killing more than 138,000 people.source
- May 12 – An earthquake measuring 7.9 on the moment magnitude scale strikes Sichuan, China, killing an estimated 87,000 people.source
- June 14 – A 6.9 magnitude earthquake in Iwate Prefecture, Japan, kills 12 and injures more than 400.source
- September 13 – Hurricane Ike makes landfall as a category 2 hurricane in Texas, killing 113 and causing over $30 billion in damages.source
- October 30 – Floods affected in Northern Vietnam and Central Vietnam and lasted 5 days causing flooding in many provinces and cities.source
- National Disaster Recovery Fund, a disaster management fund is established by the Government of Jamaica.source
Culture & Society
- January 21 – Online activist group Anonymous initiates Project Chanology, after a leaked interview of Tom Cruise by the Church of Scientology is published on YouTube, and the Church of Scientology issued a "copyright infringement" claim. In response, Anonymous sympathizers took to the streets to protest outside the church (after February 10), while the church's websites and centres were getting DoS attacks, phone line nukes, and black faxes.source
- May 20–24 – The Eurovision Song Contest 2008 takes place in Belgrade, Serbia, and is won by Russian entrant Dima Bilan with the song "Believe".source
- June 7–29 – Austria and Switzerland jointly host the UEFA Euro 2008 football tournament, which is won by Spain.source
- August 8–24 – The 2008 Summer Olympics were held in Beijing, China.source
- September 5 – Quentin Bryce becomes the first female Governor-General of Australia.source
- November 2 – In a race won by Brazilian driver Felipe Massa, British driver Lewis Hamilton ends in 5th place in 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix and becomes the first black driver to win the Formula One World Championship, and the second youngest driver to achieve the feat at the age of 23.source
- European Certification and Qualification Association is founded.source
Deaths
- November 27 – XL Airways Germany Flight 888T. An Airbus A320 due to be redelivered to Air New Zealand stalls and crashes over Mediterranean Sea resulting the deaths of 7source
- December 23 – A military coup d'état deposes the government of Guinea shortly after the death of longtime President Lansana Conté.source