2020 CE

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a global social, societal and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns, and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Geospatial World also called 2020 "the worst year in terms of climate change" in part due to major climate disasters worldwide, including major bushfires in Australia and the western United States, as well as extreme tropical cyclone activity affecting large parts of North America. A United Nations progress report published in December 2020 indicated that none of the international Sustainable Development Goals for 2020 were achieved.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

January 5 – 2019–20 Croatian presidential election: The second round of voting is held, and Zoran Milanović of the Social Democratic Party of Croatia defeats incumbent president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović.source
January 11 – Presidential and legislative elections are held in Taiwan. Incumbent president Tsai Ing-wen is reelected, and the Democratic Progressive Party wins a majority of 67 out of 113 seats in the Legislative Yuan.source
February 24 – The Pakatan Harapan coalition government of Malaysia collapses and is replaced by the Perikatan Nasional coalition. Muhyiddin Yassin becomes the eighth Prime Minister of Malaysia on March 1.source
February 29 – A conditional peace agreement is signed between the United States and the Taliban. The U.S. begins gradually withdrawing combat troops from Afghanistan on March 10.source
March 17 – The Euro 2020 and 2020 Copa América association football tournaments are postponed until the summer of 2021 by UEFA and CONMEBOL, respectively.source
April 15 – The 2020 South Korean legislative election is held to elect all 300 members of the National Assembly of South Korea and the Democratic Party of Korea-Platform Party alliance wins 180 out of 300 seats.source
April 28 – Colombia formalizes its membership with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), becoming the 37th nation of the organization.source
May 14 – NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says the military alliance is "ready to support" the UN-recognized Government of National Accord in Libya while Greece, a member state of NATO, strongly criticizes Stoltenberg's remarks, saying his recognition of the "Muslim Brotherhood government" does not reflect the positions of the military alliance.source
May 19 – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announces the termination of all agreements, including security ones, with Israel and the United States in response to Israel's plans to annex the Jordan Valley.source
May 24 – Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi pardons 3,157 prisoners to celebrate Eid al-Fitr and, two days later, President of Zambia Edgar Lungu pardons nearly 3,000 inmates to commemorate Africa Freedom Day.source
June 27 – Micheál Martin succeeds Leo Varadkar as Taoiseach of Ireland, with Varadkar becoming Tánaiste in a historic three-party coalition government.source
June 30 – China passes the controversial Hong Kong national security law, allowing China to crack down on opposition to Beijing at home or abroad.source
July 10 – The 2020 Singaporean general election is held to elect all 93 members of the Parliament of Singapore and the People's Action Party, led by prime minister Lee Hsien Loong wins 83 out of 93 seats.source
July 12 – The second round of voting for the 2020 Polish presidential election is held and incumbent president Andrzej Duda is reelected.source
August 5 – U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar travels to Taiwan, the highest U.S. official visit to the country in 40 years. The PRC condemns the visit.source
August 13 – Israel and the UAE agree to normalise relations, marking the third Israel–Arab peace deal.source
August 23 – Bayern Munich wins the 2019–20 UEFA Champions League by beating Paris Saint-Germain in the final 1–0.source
August 28 – Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the longest-serving prime minister in the history of Japan, announces his resignation from office, citing ill health.source
September 4 – Kosovo and Serbia announce that they will normalize economic relations. The two countries will also move their Israeli embassies to Jerusalem, becoming the third and fourth countries to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.source
September 4 – Bahrain and Israel agree to normalise relations, marking the fourth Israel–Arab peace deal.source
September 16 – Yoshihide Suga becomes the new Prime Minister of Japan, replacing Shinzo Abe.source
October 23 – Israel and Sudan agree to normalise relations, marking the fifth Israel–Arab peace deal.source
October 23 – At the end of an 11-year demining process, the Falkland Islands are declared free of land mines, 38 years after the end of the 1982 war.source
December 14 – Turkey–United States relations: The United States places sanctions on Turkey in retaliation for their purchase of a S-400 missile system from Russia, marking the first time they have sanctioned a NATO ally.source

Conflict & Security

January 2 – The Royal Australian Air Force and Navy are deployed to New South Wales and Victoria to assist mass evacuation efforts amidst the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season.source
January 3 – A United States drone strike at Baghdad International Airport kills ten people, including the intended target, an Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi paramilitary leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.source
January 5 – Second Libyan Civil War: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announces the deployment of Turkish troops to Libya on behalf of the United Nations-backed Government of National Accord.source
January 8 – Iran launches ballistic missiles at two Iraqi military bases hosting U.S. soldiers, injuring over 100 personnel.source
January 18 – Yemeni Civil War: 111 Yemeni soldiers and five civilians are killed in a drone and missile attack on a military camp near Maʼrib.source
February 29 – Barquisimeto shooting: During a demonstration, pro-government colectivos shoot at disputed President and Speaker of the National Assembly Juan Guaidó and his supporters in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, leaving five injured.source
March 5 – The International Criminal Court authorizes the Afghanistan War Crimes inquiry to proceed, reportedly allowing for the first time for U.S. citizens to be investigated.source
March 26 – Militants in the Philippines, Syria, Yemen, and Libya agree to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres' call for a ceasefire; some accept medical aid for themselves and civilians in their communities. Colombia and Venezuela discuss a common response to the global pandemic, and the UAE airlifts aid to Iran.source
April 6 – The United States designates the Russian Imperial Movement as a terrorist organization and imposes sanctions on its leaders; it is the first white supremacist group the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization.source
April 8 – COVID-19 pandemic: The Saudi–led coalition declares a unilateral ceasefire in its operations against Houthi forces in Yemen in accordance with United Nations-led efforts.source
April 17 – The U.N. Human Rights Office accuses Myanmar of carrying out daily airstrikes in the Rakhine and Chin states and that at least 32 civilians have been killed since March 23. The separatist Arakan Army unilaterally declared a month-long ceasefire to fight the pandemic, but the military rejected the ceasefire claiming a previous ceasefire had been reneged by the insurgents.source
April 17 – China revises the COVID-19 death toll in Wuhan upward, adding 1,290 more fatalities to bring the country's reported COVID-19 deaths to 4,632.source
April 23 – Syrian Civil War: Two former high-ranking members of the Syrian Army go on trial in Koblenz, Germany, for alleged war crimes committed during the civil war. It is the first time that Syrian military officials are prosecuted for their roles in the conflict.source
May 3–4 – Venezuelan dissidents and a North American-based private military company, Silvercorp USA, unsuccessfully attempt to infiltrate Venezuela and forcibly remove President Nicolás Maduro from office.source
May 9 – Several Chinese and Indian soldiers are injured in a cross-border clash at the Nathu La crossing. About 150 troops participated in the face-off, which involved fistfights and stone-throwing.source
June 4 – Libya's Government of National Accord (GNA) says they are in full control of the capital, Tripoli, after forces of the Libyan National Army (LNA) retreat from the territory following months of intense fighting in the city.source
June 15 – At least 20 Indian soldiers and over 40 Chinese forces are killed or injured in skirmishes in the disputed Galwan Valley, the largest escalation along the Sino-Indian border in five decades.source
July 7 – Protests begin throughout Bulgaria with the goal of removing Borisov's cabinet and Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev from office.source
July 8 – At least 180 bodies are found in mass graves in Djibo, Burkina Faso, where soldiers are fighting jihadists. It is suspected that government forces were involved in mass extrajudicial executions.source
August 19 – The Special Tribunal for Lebanon convicts in absentia Salim Ayyash, a senior member of Hezbollah, for the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri.source
September 27 – Beginning of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War: deadly clashes erupt in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces. Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the Republic of Artsakh introduce martial law and mobilize forces.source
November 19 – The Brereton Report into Australian war crimes during the War in Afghanistan is released.source
November 27 – Iran's top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, is assassinated near Tehran.source
Beginning of the Tigray War: Ethiopia launches an offensive in Tigray following an attack on Ethiopian military bases by the Tigray People's Liberation Front.source

Exploration & Expansion

September 3 – The skeletons of 200 mammoths and 30 other animals are unearthed at a construction site for the Mexico City Santa Lucía Airport. It is the largest find of mammoth bones to date, surpassing The Mammoth Site in the U.S. which had 61 skeletons.source

Economy & Finance

January 29 – U.S. President Donald Trump signs the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, a North American trade agreement set to replace NAFTA.source
February 27 – 2020 stock market crash: Triggered by fears of the spreading of COVID-19, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) plunges by 1,190.95 points, or 4.4%, to close at 25,766.64, its largest one-day point decline at the time. This follows several days of large falls, marking the worst week for the index since the 2008 financial crisis.source
March 9 – International share prices fall sharply in response to a Russo-Saudi oil price war and the impact of COVID-19. The DJIA plunges more than 2,000 points, the largest fall in its history up to that point. Oil prices also plunged by as much as 30% in early trading, the biggest fall since 1991.source
March 12 – Global stock markets crashed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the United States travel ban on the Schengen Area. The DJIA goes into free fall, closing at over −2,300 points, the worst loss for the index since 1987.source
March 16 – The DJIA falls by 2,997.10, the single largest point drop in history and the second-largest percentage drop ever at 12.93%, an even greater crash than Black Monday (1929). This follows the U.S. Federal Reserve announcing that it will cut its target interest rate to 0–0.25%.source
March 30 – 2020 Russia–Saudi Arabia oil price war: The price of Brent Crude falls 9% to $23 per barrel, the lowest level since November 2002.source
April 14 – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says it expects the world economy to shrink 3%, the worst contraction since the Great Depression of the 1930s.source
April 17 – The China Securities Regulatory Commission approves a transaction in which Switzerland's Credit Suisse will take a majority interest in a China securities firm, making Credit Suisse the first foreign bank to own a majority of such a company since the easing of foreign ownership rules in 2018.source
April 20 – Oil prices reach a record low, with West Texas Intermediate falling into negative values.source
May 26 – LATAM Airlines, the largest air carrier in Latin America, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.source
June 3 – Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the UK will change immigration laws to offer a pathway to UK citizenship for all Hong Kong citizens who are eligible for BN(O) status if the government of China imposes new security laws on the territory.source
July 10 – The ECB accepts Bulgaria and Croatia into ERM II, a mandatory stage for countries wishing to adopt the euro. This is the currency union's first major expansion in half a decade.source
July 15 – The Twitter accounts of prominent political figures, CEOs, and celebrities are hacked to promote a bitcoin scam.source
August 26 – Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos becomes the first person in history to have a net worth exceeding US$200 billion, according to Forbes.source
September 21 – Microsoft agrees to buy video game holding company ZeniMax Media, including Bethesda Softworks and their following subsidiaries for US$7.5 billion, in what was the biggest and most expensive takeover in the history of the video game industry.source
October 1 – The EU began legal proceedings against the UK after it ignored their deadline to drop controversial sections from its internal market Bill.source
December 24 – The United Kingdom and the European Union agree to a comprehensive free trade agreement prior to the end of the transition period.source

Technology & Infrastructure

March 2 – The Yahoo! Time capsule, dating from 2006, is opened.source
March 20 – The Bhadla Solar Park is commissioned and becomes the world's largest solar park.source
April 20 – The Industrial Bank of Korea agrees to pay US$86 million and will enter a two-year deferred prosecution agreement to settle lawsuits with the U.S. Department of Justice and the state of New York over a 2011 scheme to help transfer US$1 billion to Iran.source
May 5 – The biggest television network in the Philippines, ABS-CBN, ceased operations for the first time in almost five decades because of the loss of its franchise.source
May 8 – The Aurangabad railway accident occurred in India. 17 migrants were sleeping on the trains when a freight train collided and killed 16 people and injured 1.source
June 16 – North Korea demolishes the Inter-Korean Liaison Office in Kaesong, established in 2018 to improve relations.source
August 1 – The Barakah nuclear power plant in the UAE becomes operational following delays since 2017. It is the first commercial nuclear power station in the Arab world.source
September 4 – The La Línea highway tunnel, the longest road tunnel in South America at a length of 8.65 kilometres (5.37 mi), is opened in Colombia after 14 years of construction and several delays.source
November 10 – Apple releases the first Mac computers (a new MacBook Air, Mac mini and MacBook Pro) powered by Apple silicon chips.source

Science & Discovery

January 9 – A rare, circumbinary planet called TOI 1338-b is discovered.source
February 13 – NASA publishes a detailed study of Arrokoth, the most distant body ever explored by a spacecraft.source
April 10 – The ESA/JAXA space probe BepiColombo makes its final gravity assist around Earth and begins to depart for Venus, where it will make several gravity assist maneuvers before finally arriving at Mercury in 2025.source
April 22 – Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps deploys the country's first military satellite, using a new satellite carrier called "Ghased" ("Messenger").source
April 28 – A fast radio burst is detected from the Magnetar SGR 1935+2154, the first ever detected inside the Milky Way, and the first to be linked to a known source.source
April 29 – (52768) 1998 OR2, a near-Earth asteroid that is 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) wide, makes a close approach of 0.042 AU (6.3 million km; 16 LD) to Earth. It will not approach closer than this until 2079.source
April 30 – NASA officially selects SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Dynetics to build its next-generation lunar lander to carry American astronauts to the Moon by 2024.source
May 6 – Astronomers announce the discovery of the first black hole located in a star system visible to the naked eye.source
May 11 – The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology publishes the result of radiocarbon and DNA analysis from the fossils that has been found in the Bacho Kiro cave, Bulgaria. The result, showing that the fossils belong to Homo sapiens instead of Neanderthal, indicates that modern humans may have arrived in Europe thousands of years earlier than previously thought.source
May 15 – Researchers announce a 2.5 cm millipede fossil belonging to the Kampecaris genus, discovered on the island of Kerrera in the Scottish Inner Hebrides, is the world's oldest-known land animal, which lived 425 million years ago in the Silurian period.source
May 30 – The first crewed flight of the SpaceX Dragon 2 (initially scheduled for May 27 but delayed due to weather) is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first crewed spacecraft to take off from U.S. soil since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011.source
June 2 – A US$5 billion class action lawsuit is filed against Alphabet Inc. and Google, alleging the company violates users' right to privacy by tracking them in Chrome's incognito mode.source
June 3 – SpaceX successfully launches and deploys 60 Starlink satellites into a low Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, bringing the total number of Starlink satellites in orbit to 482.source
July 30 – NASA successfully launches its Mars 2020 rover mission to search for signs of ancient life and collect samples for return to Earth. The mission includes technology demonstrations to prepare for future human missions.source
September 2 – Intel introduces a new logo and its slogan "What's inside has never mattered more.", which was later changed to "Do something wonderful.".source
September 14 – The Royal Astronomical Society announces the detection of phosphine in Venus' atmosphere, which is known to be a strong predictor for the presence of microbial life.source
September 14 – The first discovery of the perfectly preserved remains of a cave bear, believed to be 22,000 to 39,500 years old (Late Pleistocene), is made in Lyakhovsky Islands, Siberia in the thawing permafrost.source
October 20 – NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft briefly touches down on Bennu, becoming the agency's first probe to retrieve samples from an asteroid, with its cargo later successfully returning to Earth on September 24, 2023.source
October 26 – NASA confirms the existence of molecular water on the sunlit side of the Moon, near Clavius crater, at concentrations of up to 412 parts per million.source
November 15 – NASA and SpaceX launch the SpaceX Crew-1 mission from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A to the ISS, the first operational flight of the Crew Dragon capsule.source
November 19 – The PlayStation 5 is released worldwide.'source
November 30 – Protein folding, one of the biggest mysteries in biology, is solved by AlphaFold, an artificial intelligence algorithm developed by DeepMind.source
December 1 – The Arecibo Telescope of the Arecibo Observatory collapses, just weeks after the announcement of its planned demolition.source
December 21 – A great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn occurs, with the two planets separated in the sky by 0.1 degrees. This is the closest conjunction between the two planets since 1623.source

Health & Medicine

January 20 – COVID-19 pandemic: Chinese authorities publicly confirm human-to-human transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.source
January 23 – COVID-19 pandemic: The Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the initial COVID-19 outbreak, is quarantined, with all scheduled public transport services and intercity flights halted.source
March 9 – COVID-19 pandemic: Italy becomes the first country to implement a nationwide quarantine in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.source
March 24 – Chinese Premier Li Keqiang reports that the domestically transmitted epidemic is now under control. Two days later, China temporarily suspends entry for foreign nationals with visas or residence permits, effective midnight on March 28.source
March 26 – Global COVID-19 cases reach 500,000, with nearly 23,000 deaths confirmed. The U.S. surpasses China and Italy in the total number of known COVID-19 cases, with at least 81,321 cases and more than 1,000 deaths.source
April 5 – COVID-19 pandemic: The first case of COVID-19 in a zoo animal is reported: a four-year-old female Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo in New York City.source
April 7 – COVID-19 pandemic: Japan declares a state of emergency in response to COVID-19 and finalises a stimulus package worth 108 trillion yen (US$990 billion), equal to 20% of the country's GDP.source
April 10 – Kivu Ebola epidemic: The Democratic Republic of the Congo reports the first case of Ebola since February 2020. The outbreak has killed more than 2,200 people since August 2018.source
April 14 – U.S. president Donald Trump announces that the U.S. will suspend funding towards the World Health Organization (WHO) pending an investigation of its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its relationship with China.source
April 28 – The Indian Ministry of External Affairs condemns the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom after its annual report recommends placing India on the "countries of particular concern" blacklist over the Citizenship Amendment Act, the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir's special status, and controversial comments made by Home Minister Amit Shah, among others.source
May 4 – A team of British and Kenyan scientists announce the discovery of Microsporidia MB, a parasitic microbe in the Microsporidia fungi group that blocks mosquitos from carrying malaria, potentially paving the way for the control of malaria.source
May 12 – Gunmen storm a maternity hospital and kill 24 people, including two newborn babies, in Dashte Barchi, a majority-Shia neighborhood of Kabul, Afghanistan. In a separate incident in Kuz Kunar, 32 people are killed at a funeral by a suicide bomber.source
May 14 – The UN warns of a global mental health crisis caused by isolation, fear, uncertainty and economic turmoil.source
May 18 – In a historic move, the World Health Organization holds its annual World Health Assembly using video conferencing instead of in-person meetings.source
June 1 – Kivu Ebola epidemic: The World Health Organization reports six new cases of Ebola, and UNICEF reports five deaths, in a renewed outbreak of the disease in Mbandaka, Équateur Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo.source
July 7 – COVID-19 pandemic: Thousands of people rally outside the House of the National Assembly of Serbia in Belgrade in response to stricter lockdown measures proposed by President Aleksandar Vučić following an increase of cases in the city.source
August 11 – COVID-19 pandemic: Russian President Vladimir Putin announces that Russia has approved the world's first COVID-19 vaccine.source
October 15 – 2020 Thai protests: The Government of Thailand declares a "severe" state of emergency banning gatherings of five or more people, initiating a crackdown on demonstrations and imposing media censorship.source
November 9 – COVID-19 pandemic: The first successful phase III trial of a COVID-19 vaccine is announced by drug companies Pfizer and BioNTech, which is 90% effective according to interim results.source
2020 United States presidential election: The election of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States and Kamala Harris as the 49th Vice President of the United States is called by many news media organizations after remaining vote counts (November 7) come in from key states delayed by an influx of mail-in ballots caused by the pandemic, defeating incumbent President Donald Trump.source
December 5 – COVID-19 pandemic: Russia begins mass vaccination against COVID-19 with the Sputnik V candidate.source
December 10 – COVID-19 pandemic: The United States and Saudi Arabia approve the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, while Argentina approves Sputnik V.source
December 20 – COVID-19 pandemic: A highly infectious new strain of SARS-CoV-2 spreading in Europe and Australia provokes international border closures.source
December 30 – COVID-19 pandemic: The United Kingdom approves AstraZeneca-Oxford's vaccine, the second one available. The vaccine is easier to store as it only requires normal fridge temperatures, making distribution easier.source

Crime & Justice

January 16 – The first impeachment trial of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, begins in the U.S. Senate. He was acquitted on February 5.source
February 19 – Hanau shootings: Eleven people are killed and five injured in a terrorist shooting spree by a far-right extremist targeting shisha bars in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Germany.source
April 18 – 44 suspected Boko Haram members are found dead, apparently due to poisoning, inside a prison in N'Djamena, Chad.source
April 21 – Mozambique police say 52 male villagers were killed by Islamist militants earlier this month in Muidumbe District, Cabo Delgado Province, after they refused to join their ranks.source
April 26 – King Salman issues a royal decree, declaring that people will no longer be executed in Saudi Arabia for crimes they were convicted of when they were minors.source
May 16 – Félicien Kabuga, a Rwandan businessman responsible for supporting the Rwandan genocide, is arrested in Asnières-sur-Seine, France, after 26 years as a fugitive.source
May 26 – Protests caused by the murder of George Floyd break out across hundreds of cities in the U.S. and around the world. These are followed by further protests and rallies on June 6 against racism and police brutality around the world.source
July 28 – Former Prime Minister of Malaysia Najib Razak is found guilty of all seven charges in the first of five trials on the 1MDB scandal, being jailed 12 years and fined RM210 million as a result.source
September 14 – Former Prime Minister of Malaysia Najib Razak is listed on the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) online database of corruption offenders convicted locally. His name at the top of the first page of the MACC Corruption Offenders Database.source
September 19 – A 1634 edition of The Two Noble Kinsmen, the last play by English playwright William Shakespeare, is discovered at the Royal Scots College's library in Salamanca, Spain. It is believed to be the oldest copy of any of his works in the country.source
September 20 – BuzzFeed News and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) release the FinCEN Files, a collection of 2,657 documents relating to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network describing over 200,000 suspicious transactions valued at over trillion that occurred from 1999 to 2017 across multiple global financial institutions.source
December 2 – Three activists in Hong Kong were jailed for their roles in the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests, with Joshua Wong getting the heaviest at 13.5 months.source
December 10 – The Nicolas Sarkozy corruption trial concludes in France.source

Disasters & Accidents

January 8 – Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was shot down by Iranian forces shortly after takeoff from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport, killing all 176 people on board.source
January 26 – 2020 Calabasas helicopter crash: Nine people are killed in an accident in Calabasas, California, including retired basketball player Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna; cause later attributed to heavy fog.source
February 6 – Livraga derailment: A Frecciarossa high-speed train traveling from Milan to Salerno derailed in Livraga, Lombardy, Italy. Two people were killed, and 31 were injured.source
April 12 – OPEC and allies strike a deal to cut oil production by 9.7 million barrels per day, the largest such cut agreed upon, starting May 1.source
May 10 – The Iranian Navy frigate Jamaran accidentally strikes the Iranian support vessel Konarak with a missile, killing nineteen sailors. This is the first friendly fire incident since February 2019, when an Indian Mil Mi-17 helicopter was mistakenly shot down by Indian air defense forces.source
May 22 – Flight PK8303, a Pakistan International Airlines passenger aircraft, crashes in a residential area near Karachi, in Pakistan, killing 97 of the 99 total people on board and injuring dozens on the ground.source
May 24 – Mining corporation Rio Tinto admits to blowing up the 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge caves in the Pilbara area of Western Australia. The firm later issues an apology to the two Aboriginal peoples who are the traditional owners of the site.source
August 4 – An explosion caused by unsafely stored ammonium nitrate kills at least 218 people, injures thousands, and severely damages the port in Beirut, Lebanon. Damage is estimated at $10–15 billion, and an estimated 300,000 people are left homeless. The following day, the Lebanese government declares a two-week state of emergency.source
August 7 – Air India Express Flight 1344 crashes after overrunning the runway at Calicut International Airport in Kerala, India, killing 19 of the 191 people on board.source

Climate & Environment

January 1 – Flash floods struck Jakarta, Indonesia, killing 66 people in the worst flooding in over a decade.source
January 12 – The Taal Volcano in the Philippines has had its first major eruption since 1977.source
May 21 – Cyclone Amphan makes landfall in eastern India and Bangladesh, killing over 100 people and forcing the evacuation of more than 4 million others. It causes over US$13 billion in damage, making it the costliest cyclone ever recorded in the North Indian Ocean, shattering the record previously held by Nargis.source
June 3 – Russian President Vladimir Putin declares a state of emergency after 20,000 tons of oil leaked into the Ambarnaya River near the Siberian city of Norilsk within the Arctic Circle on May 26, 2020. The World Wildlife Fund said the accident is believed to be the second-largest in modern Russian history.source
July 19 – Flooding of the Brahmaputra River kills 189 and leaves 4 million homeless in India and Nepal.source
August 15 – The Japanese bulk carrier Wakashio, which stranded on a reef in Mauritius last month, breaks in half. Approximately 1,000 tonnes of oil are spilled into the ocean, becoming the largest environmental disaster in the history of Mauritius.source
August 27 – Hurricane Laura makes landfall in Lake Charles, Louisiana with winds of 150 mph, making it the strongest hurricane to ever strike the state in terms of windspeed, tied with the 1856 Last Island Hurricane.source
September 6 – Typhoon Haishen makes landfall on Japan and then South Korea as a strong category 2-equivalent typhoon. It later makes landfall on North Korea where widespread flooding occurs.source
September 16 – Hurricane Sally makes landfall on the Alabama coast as a high-end Category 2 hurricane, causing over $8 billion in damages and killing 8 people.source
October 6 – Serious floods affected in Central Vietnam, lasted nearly 3 months and killed at least 249 people.source
October 17 – 2020 New Zealand general election: Jacinda Ardern's Labour Party wins a landslide second term in office, defeating the National Party led by Judith Collins and gaining the country's first parliamentary majority since the introduction of the MMP voting system.source
October 21 – Heavy rains brought by tropical storm Linfa caused landslides at the Rao Trang 3 hydroelectric plant in Thua Thien Hue, Vietnam, killing 17 construction workers and 13 soldiers who were on a rescue mission.source
October 30 – 2020 Aegean Sea earthquake: A magnitude 7.0 earthquake hits Turkey and Greece, killing 119 people and injuring over 1,000.source
October 31 – Typhoon Goni makes landfall in the Philippines, becoming the strongest landfalling tropical cyclone in history, displacing hundreds of thousands of people and killing dozens of people in the region.source
November 7 – Hurricane Eta makes landfall in Nicaragua, killing over 100 people in Central America as a category 4.source
November 16 – Hurricane Iota makes landfall in Nicaragua as a Category 4 hurricane just two weeks after Hurricane Eta made landfall, devastating the same areas.source
Typhoon Vamco makes landfall in Vietnam, after crossing the Philippines and killing at least 69 people. The storm causes the worst floods in the region since Typhoon Ketsana in 2009.source
The United States formally exits the Paris Agreement on climate change.source
Western Sahara conflict: fighting erupts between Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic when Moroccan forces launch a military operation to capture the town of Guerguerat, located in a UN-monitored buffer zone.source
December 29 – The 2020 Petrinja earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 strikes Croatia, killing seven and injuring more than 20.source

Culture & Society

March 24 – The International Olympic Committee and Japan postpone the 2020 Summer Olympics to 2021. On March 30, the Summer Olympics will be rescheduled from July 23 to August 8, 2021.source
May 26 – Costa Rica becomes the first Central American country to legalise same-sex marriage.source
July 10 – Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan orders the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul to be reverted to a mosque following a supreme court annulment of a 1934 presidential decree that made it into a museum.source
November 15 – Lewis Hamilton wins his seventh Formula One World Drivers' Championship at the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix, equalling the record set by Michael Schumacher in 2004.source

Deaths

May 18 – The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs announces that nearly 1 million people are affected and at least 24 people have died in flash floods that have hit Beledweyne and Jowhar, Somalia.source
May 27 – COVID-19 pandemic: The U.S. death toll passes 100,000 – more Americans than were killed in the Vietnam War and Korean War combined, and approaching that of the First World War, where 116,000 Americans died in combat. The total number of cases continues to rise, although the rate is slowing.source
September 4 – Pope Benedict XVI becomes the longest-lived pope at 93 years, 4 months, and 16 days, surpassing Pope Leo XIII, who died in 1903.source
September 29 – The Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Sabah dies at the age of 91. Crown Prince Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah is named his successor.source
October 29 – The International Organization for Migration (IOM) confirms the death of at least 140 migrants who drowned off the coast of Senegal on a vessel bound for the Spanish Canary Islands, making it the deadliest shipwreck of 2020.source
December 4 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 65 million worldwide, with the global death toll exceeding 1.5 million. Figures reflect that, in the last week, over 10,000 people worldwide have died on average every day, with one death every nine seconds. According to the World Health Organization, COVID-19 had caused more deaths in 2020 than tuberculosis in 2019, as well as four times the number of deaths than malaria.source