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 of Anno Domini; 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".¹

Events

January

The National Palace, one of many buildings heavily damaged in the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

• 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 100.²
• January 4 – The tallest man-made structure to date, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is officially opened.³⁴⁵
• 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.⁶
• January 12 – A 7.0-magnitude earthquake occurs in Haiti, devastating the nation's capital, Port-au-Prince. The confirmed death toll is over 230,000.⁷⁸⁹
• January 15 – The longest annular solar eclipse of the 3rd millennium occurs.

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.¹⁰¹¹¹²
• 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.¹³ Later in the day, the rebels announce on television the formation of a ruling junta, the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy, headed by chef d'escadron Salou Djibo.¹⁴
• February 27 – An 8.8 magnitude earthquake occurs in Chile, triggering a tsunami over the Pacific and killing approximately 800 people.¹⁵

March

• March 16 - The Kasubi Tombs, Uganda's only cultural World Heritage Site, are destroyed by fire.¹⁶

Predicted and scheduled events

March

April

• April 12 – Planned maiden flight of the SpaceX Falcon 9 commercial heavy lift launch vehicle.¹⁷

May

• May 1 – October 30 – 2010 World Expo in Shanghai.

June

• June 11 – July 11 – 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
• June 25–27 – The 36th G8 summit is to be held in Huntsville, Ontario, Canada. Consecutively, the 4th G20 summit will be held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on the same dates.

July

August

• August 14–26 – The inaugural 2010 Summer Youth Olympic Games will be held in Singapore.

September

• September 16 – The final space shuttle mission, STS-133, is scheduled to launch.

October

• October 10 – The Netherlands Antilles will be dissolved and the islands split up into a new constitutional status.
• October 23 – The International Space Station program will take the record for the longest continuous occupation of space in history from Mir. (See List of spaceflight records).

November

• November – The first Peruvian nanosatellite will be launched from Russia.^18192021
• November 29 – December 10 – 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference 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).²²²³

December

Unknown dates

• Israel will complete its West Bank barrier.
• The Space Shuttle program will be retired by NASA.

Deaths

January

Jean Simmons

J. D. Salinger

• 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 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

Alexander Haig

• 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 – Charles 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)

Awards

Nobel Prizes

• Chemistry TBA
• Economics TBA
• Literature TBA
• Peace TBA
• Physics TBA
• Physiology or Medicine TBA

Major holidays

• January 1 - New Year's Day
• January 7 - 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, a religious festival in India
• March 20 (21 in the Far East) – Vernal Equinox, also known as Nowruz
• April 4 – Easter
• May 1 – Beltane, a Cross-quarter day
• August 1 – Lammas, a Cross-quarter day
• August 11 – Ramadan begins
• September 8–10 – Rosh Hashanah, the "Jewish New Year"
• September 10 – Eid ul-Fitr
• September 17–18 – Yom Kippur
• September 23 – Autumnal Equinox, also known as Mabon
• November 5 – Diwali, a religious festival in Hinduism, Sikhism, and Jainism.
• November 16 – Eid al-Adha, a religious festival in Islam
• December 25 – Christmas

In fiction

Film

• 2010 (1984)
• Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space (2002)
• Absolon (2003)
• Banlieue 13 (2004)
• District 9 (2009)

Literature

• Stand on Zanzibar (1968) by John Brunner
• 2010: Odyssey Two (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.
• The manga version of Death Note ends in this year, when the main character, Light Yagami, dies from a heart attack after being shot multiple times.

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 The Mint Chicks song "2010" is the b-side to the vinyl single "Walking Off a Cliff Again" and also appears on their album Screens.
• 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

• 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 The event of Britannia's invasion of Japan happens on August 10, 2010.

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.
• Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight is a futuristic spinoff of the original Street Fighter released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990.
• Dino Crisis 2, the sequel to the 1999 game, released in 2000.
• Rugrats: Search for Reptar (1998): The last level, titled Reptar 2010, is set in 2010.

References

External links

The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the copyrighted Wikipedia "2010" article.