21st century

The 21st (twenty-first) century is the current century in the Anno Domini era or Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. It began on January 1, 2001, and will end on December 31, 2100.[1] The 21st century is the first century of the 3rd millennium.

For a timeline of 21st-century events, see Timeline of the 21st century. For other uses, see 21st century (disambiguation).

Millennium: 3rd millennium
Centuries:
Timelines:
State leaders:
Decades:
  • 2050s
  • 2060s
  • 2070s
  • 2080s
  • 2090s
Categories: Births – Deaths
Establishments – Disestablishments

The beginning of the 21st century has been marked by the rise of a global economy and Third World consumerism, deepening global concern over terrorism and an increase in private enterprise.[2][3][4] Effects of global warming and rising sea levels have continued, with eight islands disappearing between 2007 and 2014.[5][6][7] The Arab Spring of the early 2010s led to mixed outcomes in the Arab world, resulting in several civil wars and governments overthrown.[8] The United States has remained the global superpower, while China is now considered as an emerging global superpower.

In 2017, about half (49.3%) of the world's population lived in "some form of democracy", though only 4.5 percent lived in "full democracies".[9]

The European Union has greatly expanded in the 21st century, adding 13 member states. Most member states of the European Union introduced a common currency, the Euro, and the United Kingdom withdrew from the European Union.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the world, causing severe global economic disruption, including the largest global recession since the Great Depression.

With the proliferation of mobile devices, more than half of the world's population obtained access to the internet (2018 estimate).[10] After the success of the Human Genome Project, DNA sequencing services became available and affordable.[11][12]

Pronunciation

There is a debate among experts and the general public on how to pronounce specific years of the 21st century in English. Regarding this, academics suggested that since former years such as 1805 and 1905 were commonly pronounced as "eighteen oh five" or "nineteen oh five", the year 2005 should naturally have been pronounced as "twenty oh five".[13] A less common variation would have been "twenty nought five". Generally, the early years of the 21st century were pronounced as "two-thousand (and) five", with a change taking place around 2010, where pronunciations often shift between the early-year standard of "two-thousand and ten" and the traditional approach of "twenty-ten".

The Vancouver Olympics, which took place in 2010, was being officially referred to by Vancouver 2010 as "the twenty-ten Olympics". The latest timeframes for change are usually placed at 2020.[13]

According to The Stanley Kubrick Archives, in the press release for his film 2001: A Space Odyssey, film director Stanley Kubrick included specific instructions for journalists to refer to the movie as "two thousand and one" instead of the commonplace pronunciation of "twenty-oh-one". Kubrick said he did this in the hope that if the film became popular, it would influence the pronunciation of that year.[14]

Society
Shanghai has become a symbol of the recent economic boom of China.

Advances in technology such as ultrasound, prenatal genetic testing and genetic engineering are changing the demographics and has the potential to change the genetic makeup of the human population. Because of sex selective abortion, fewer girls have been born in the 21st century (and since the early 1980s) compared to past centuries, mostly because of son preference in East and South Asia. In 2014, only 47 percent of Indian births were of girls.[15] This has led to an increase in bachelors in countries such as China and India. The first genetically modified children were born in November 2018 in China, beginning a new biological era for the human species and raising great controversy.

Anxiety[16] and depression[17] rates have risen in the United States and many other parts of the world. However, suicide rates have fallen in Europe and most of the rest of the world so far this century, declining 29% globally between 2000 and 2018, despite rising 18% in the United States in the same period. The decline in suicide has been most notable among Chinese and Indian women, the elderly, and middle-aged Russian men.[18][19]

Knowledge and information

The entire written works of humanity, from the beginning of recorded history to 2003, in all known languages, are estimated to be at five exabytes of data.[20][21] Since 2003, with the beginning of social media and "user-generated content", the same amount of data is created every two days.[22] The advancement of the sum total of human knowledge and information continues to grow at an exponential rate.

Telecommunications in the early 21st century are much more advanced and universal than they were in the late 20th century. Only a few percent of the world's population were Internet users and cellular phone owners in the late 1990s; as of 2018, 55% of the world's population is online and as of 2019, an estimated 67% own a cell phone.[23] In the 2010s, artificial intelligence, mostly in the form of deep learning and machine learning became more prevalent, and is prominently used in Gmail and Google's search engine, as well as in banking, the military and other niches. In 2017, 14% of the world's population still lacked access to electricity.[24]

India's Prayag Kumbh Mela is regarded as the world's largest religious festival.

In 2001, Dennis Tito became the first space tourist, beginning the era of commercial spaceflight. Entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk and Richard Branson are working towards commercial space exploration, colonization and tourism, and China and India have made substantial strides in their space programs. On January 3, 2019, China landed a robotic spacecraft on the far side of the Moon, the first to do so.[25]

Culture and politics

War and violence has declined considerably compared to the 20th century, continuing the post-World War II trend called Long Peace. Malnourishment and poverty are still widespread globally, but fewer people live in the most extreme forms of poverty. In 1990, approximately one-in-four people were malnourished, and nearly 36% of the world's population lived in extreme poverty; by 2015, these numbers had dropped to approximately one-in-eight and 10%, respectively.

The Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal drew international attention to the possible negative effects of social media in influencing citizen's views, particularly with regard to the 2016 United States presidential election.

Population and urbanization

The world population was about 6.1 billion at the start of the 21st century, and reached 7.7 billion by January 2019. It is estimated to reach about 8.6 billion by the year 2030,[26] and 9.8 billion by the year 2050. According to the United Nations World Urbanization prospects, 60% of the world's human population is projected to live in megacities and megalopolises by 2030, 70% by 2050, and 90% by 2080. By 2040, more than 5 times the current global gross domestic product is expected to be invested in urban infrastructure.[27]

Life expectancy has increased as child mortality continues to decline. A baby born in 2016, for example, can on average (globally) expect to live 72 years—26 years longer than the global average of someone born in 1950. Ten million Britons (16% of the population of the United Kingdom) are expected to live to 100 or older.[28]

Climate change remains a serious concern; UN Chief António Guterres, for instance, has described it as an "existential threat" to humanity.[29] Furthermore, the Holocene extinction event, the sixth most significant extinction event in the history of the Earth, continues with the widespread degradation of highly biodiverse habitats as a byproduct of human activity.[30]

A map of uncontacted tribes, around the start of the 21st century

Economics, education and retirement

Economically and politically, the United States and Western Europe were dominant at the beginning of the century; by the 2010s, China became an emerging global superpower and by some measures the world's largest economy. In terms of purchasing power parity, India's economy became larger than that of Japan around the year 2011.[31]

There is an ongoing impact of technological unemployment due to automation and computerization: the rate at which jobs are disappearing—due to machines replacing them—is expected to escalate.[32] Automation alters the number of jobs and the skills demands of industries. As of 2019, the production output of first world nations' manufacturing sectors was doubled when compared to 1984 output; but it is now produced with one-third fewer workers and at significantly reduced operating costs.[33] Half of all jobs with requirements lower than a bachelor's degree are currently in the process of being replaced with partial- or full-automation.[34]

The World Economic Forum forecast that 65% of children entering primary school will end up in jobs or careers that currently do not yet exist.[35]

A rise in the retirement age has been called for in view of an increase in life expectancy and has been put in place in many jurisdictions.[36][37]

Linguistic diversity

As of 2009, SIL Ethnologue catalogued 6,909 living human languages.[38] The exact number of known living languages will vary from 5,000 to 10,000, depending generally on the precision of one's definition of "language", and in particular on how one classifies dialects.

Estimates vary depending on many factors but the general consensus is that there are between 6,000 and 7,000 languages currently spoken, and that between 50 and 90% of those will have become extinct by the year 2100.[39] The top 20 languages spoken by more than 50 million speakers each, are spoken by 50% of the world's population, whereas many of the other languages are spoken by small communities, most of them with fewer than 10,000 speakers.[39]

Events
Main article: Timeline of the 21st century

2000s
Belligerents of the Second Congo War
September 11 attacks
Angela Merkel and José Manuel Barroso
  • 2006–2008 – The dismantling of former Yugoslavia continued after Montenegro gained independence on June 3, 2006, and Kosovo declared independence on February 17, 2008. However, Kosovo's independence was disputed by Russia and many of its allies and was only partially recognized.
  • 2006 – On July 12, Hezbollah crossed the border of Lebanon and captured two Israeli soldiers. Israel responded by sending troops across the border and bombing Hezbollah strongholds, while Hezbollah fired missiles on towns in northern Israel, approximately 6 each day. At the end of the war 1,200 Lebanese civilians, 500 Hezbollah fighteres, 44 Israeli civilians and 121 Israeli soldiers died. A ceasefire was signed on August 14, after which Israeli troops withdrew from Lebanon.
  • 2006 – North Korea conducted its first nuclear test on October 9.[41] This was preceded by years of political wrangling with the U.S. over the status of their nuclear program.
  • 2007–2008 – Nepal's centuries-old monarchy is overthrown, and the country becomes a republic.
  • 2007 – Bulgaria and Romania join the European Union.
  • 2007 – A civil war escalated in the Gaza Strip throughout June, which resulted in Hamas eventually driving most Fatah-loyal forces from the Strip. In reaction, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh and dissolved the Hamas-ruled parliament. Scattered conflict continues.
Barack Obama, the first African-American President of the United States, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev after signing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

2010s
  • 2010 – Julia Gillard becomes the first female Prime Minister of Australia.
Julia Gillard was sworn in as the first female Prime Minister of Australia in 2010.
Americans celebrating the Death of Osama bin Laden in front of the White House
Pope Francis in Poland
Ukraine, Euromaidan, people protesting in favor of Ukraine's European way.
Pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk, Ukraine
European migrant crisis in 2015
Turkish anti-coup rally in support of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 22 July 2016
U.S. President Donald Trump, King Salman of Saudi Arabia and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi touching The Orb at the 2017 Riyadh summit.
China's Xi Jinping has become the leader for life since 2018.
Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, parents, and others march in the March for Our Lives protest in Parkland, FL in 2018.

2020s
George Floyd protests in Miami during the COVID-19 pandemic in June 2020.[46]
Joe Biden, the 46th and current President of the United States.[47]

Politics, wars and states
Russian President Vladimir Putin with George W. Bush and other Western leaders in Moscow, 9 May 2005
Protesters try to stop members of the G8 from attending the summit during the 27th G8 summit in Genoa, Italy by burning vehicles on the main route to the summit.

New states and territorial changes

Some territories have gained independence during the 21st century. This is a list of sovereign states that have gained independence in the 21st century and have been recognized by the UN.

Celebration of the Declaration of Independence of Kosovo

These nations gained sovereignty through government reform.

The Union of the Comoros replaced the Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoros

The Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan replaced the Islamic State of Afghanistan.

The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro replaced the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan replaced the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan

The Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal replaced the Kingdom of Nepal.

The National Transitional Council of Libya replaced the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

The State of Libya replaced the National Transitional Council of Libya.

These territories have declared independence and secured relative autonomy but they have only been recognized by some UN member states:

These territories have declared independence and secured relative autonomy but they have been recognized by no one:

These territories were annexed from a sovereign country, the action has only been recognized by some UN member states:

  • Crimea annexed from Ukraine into the Russian Federation on March 18, 2014.

Science and technology

Space exploration
NASA successfully lands the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars.
Artist's impression of New Horizons' close encounter with the Pluto–Charon system.
  • 2001 – Dennis Tito becomes the first space tourist by paying $19 million to board the International Space Station.
  • 2003 – Space Shuttle Columbia disaster February 1.
  • 2003 – The Chinese space program launches its first manned space flight, Shenzhou 5, on October 15. This made China the third country in the world to have indigenous manned space capability.
  • 2004 – Mars Exploration Rovers land on Mars; Opportunity discovers evidence that an area of Mars was once covered in water.
  • 2004 – SpaceShipOne makes the first privately funded human spaceflight, June 21.
  • 2005 – The Huygens probe lands on Titan, the largest of Saturn's moons, January 14.
  • 2006 – The New Horizons probe is launched to Pluto, on January 19.
  • 2006 – Pluto is reclassified from a planet to a dwarf planet, leaving the solar system with eight planets.
  • 2007 – China launches its first lunar mission with the Chang'e 1, on October 24.
  • 2008 – India launches its first lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 which included a remote sensing orbiter and impactor on 22 October 2008. It made India the third nation to place its flag on Moon.
  • 2008 – Chinese space program launches its third manned space flight carrying its first three-person crew and conducts its first spacewalk that makes China the third nation after Russia and USA to do that, Shenzhou 7, on September 25.
  • 2008 – Phoenix discovers water ice on Mars.
  • 2009 – Iran launches its first satellite, Omid, on February 2.
  • 2009 – The Indian Space Research Organisation discovers water on the Moon.
  • 2011 – NASA retires the last Space Shuttle, Atlantis, marking an end to its three-decade shuttle program.
  • 2012 – The 50th successful launch in a row for the European launcher Ariane 5, on August 2.
  • 2012 – SpaceX successfully delivers cargo to the International Space Station.
  • 2012 – NASA successfully lands the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars.
  • 2014 – India's Mars Orbiter Mission, the nation's first attempt to send a spacecraft to Mars, successfully entered orbit on September 24, making India the fourth nation in the world to reach that goal.
  • 2014 – The European Space Agency robotic spacecraft Philae landed successfully on the comet 67P, the first cometary landing ever.
  • 2015 – On July 14, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft became the first to fly by Pluto, on a mission to photograph and collect data on its planetary system. No other spacecraft has yet performed such a mission so far from Earth.
  • 2015 – On September 28, NASA announces that liquid water has been found on Mars.[49]
  • 2016 – On July 4, NASA's Juno space probe maneuvered into a polar orbit to study the planet Jupiter.[50]
  • 2017 – Seven Earth-sized exoplanets are discovered around TRAPPIST-1, three of which are potentially habitable.
  • 2017 – SpaceX launches SES-10 on a re-used first stage, becoming the first re-flight of an orbital-class booster.
  • 2019 – New Horizons performs a flyby of 486958 Arrokoth, the most distant object to be visited by a spacecraft.
  • 2019 – Chinese probe Chang'e 4 becomes the first human-made object to land on the far side of the Moon.[51]
  • 2019 – NASA concludes the 15-year Opportunity rover mission after being unable to wake the rover from hibernation.[52]
  • 2019 – Israel launched its first spacecraft, Beresheet, towards the Moon on April 7; after two months of journey, the spacecraft failed to land and crashed on the surface of the Moon, what made Israel the seventh country to successfully orbit the Moon.
  • 2019 – The first image of the supermassive black hole inside galaxy Messier 87 was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope.[53]

Physics

Mathematics

Biotechnology and medicine
Further information: Timeline of medicine and medical technology § 2000 – present
See also: Medicine in the 2010s
Western African Ebola virus epidemic
U.S. yearly overdose deaths. More than 70,200 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2017.
  • 2002–2004 – Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) spreads around the globe in the 2002-04 SARS outbreak.
  • 2003 – Completion of the Human Genome Project
  • 2005 – The first successful partial face transplant is performed in France.
  • 2006 – Australian of the Year Dr Ian Frazer develops a vaccine for cervical cancer.
  • 2007 – Visual prosthetic (bionic eye) Argus II.
  • 2008 – Japanese scientists create a form of artificial DNA.
  • 2008 – Laurent Lantieri performs the first full face transplant.
  • 2012 – The first successful complete face transplant is performed in Turkey.
  • 2012 – Doubts raised over Statin medication.
  • 2013 – First kidney grown in vitro in the U.S.
  • 2013 – First human liver grown from stem cells in Japan.

Telecommunications
Steve Jobs discussing the iPhone, an early smartphone, in 2008

The Digital Revolution continued into the early 21st century with mobile phone usage and Global Internet usage growing massively, becoming available to many more people, with more applications and faster speeds.

Worldwide Internet users
 2005201020172019a
World population[55] 6.5 billion 6.9 billion 7.4 billion 7.75 billion
Users worldwide 16% 30% 48% 53.6%
Users in the developing world 8% 21% 41.3% 47%
Users in the developed world 51% 67% 81% 86.6%
a Estimate.
Source: International Telecommunications Union.[56]

Social networking emerged in the late 2000s as a popular social communication, largely replacing much of the function of email, message boards and instant messaging services. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat are all major examples of social media to gain widespread popularity. The use of webcams and front-facing cameras on PCs and related devices, and services such as Skype and FaceTime, have made video calling and video conferencing widespread.

Civil unrest
December 2001 riots in Argentina, also known as "Argentinazo".
Protest against the Iraq war in Washington D.C., USA, 2003.
2007 Georgian demonstrations against the government of president Mikheil Saakashvili.
Tahrir Square Protest during the Arab Spring in Egypt.
Peaceful protests in Madrid. In August 2011, Spain's unemployment reached 21.2% (46.2% for youths).
Protests in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014.
2017–2018 Romanian protests against government policies and corruption, 22 January 2017
Supporters of Catalan independence protest in Barcelona in April 2018
2019–20 Hong Kong protests
"Marcha Mas Grande De Chile" during the 2019–2020 Chilean protests.

Disasters

Natural disasters
The tsunami striking Ao Nang in Thailand on December 26, 2004.
New Orleans, Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

2000s

  • 2001 Gujarat earthquake – An earthquake in Gujarat, India on January 26, 2001 killed approximately 20,000 people.
  • January 2001 El Salvador earthquake – A 7.9 earthquake in El Salvador shook the whole country on January 13, 2001, causing a major devastating landslide, hundreds dead, thousands injured and many homeless. A month later, on February 13, 2001 the country suffered a second earthquake – 6.7
  • 2003 European heat wave – Approximately 30,000 people were killed across Europe in a summer long heat wave.
  • 2003 Bam earthquake – An earthquake in Bam, Iran on December 27, 2003, killed more than 26,000.
  • 2004 Hurricane Jeanne – Over 3,000 people are killed by Hurricane Jeanne in Haiti in September 2004.
  • 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami – On December 26, 2004, a massive undersea earthquake resulted in a massive tsunami striking southeast Asia killing approximately 230,000.
  • 2005 Hurricane Katrina – The hurricane killed 1,836 in southeast Louisiana and Mississippi (mostly in New Orleans) and South Florida. A significant portion of the city, most of which sits below sea level, was submerged. Damages reached US$81.5 billion, making Katrina the costliest tropical cyclone ever recorded in the U.S.
  • 2005 Kashmir earthquake – An earthquake in Kashmir on October 8, 2005, killed at least 74,500 in India and Pakistan.
  • 2008 Cyclone Nargis – lead to catastrophic storm surge, leading to a death toll in excess of 100,000 and making millions homeless.
  • 2008 Sichuan earthquake – An earthquake between 7.9 and 8.0-magnitude struck Sichuan, China, on May 12, 2008, killing 68,712, with 17,921 missing.
  • 2009 Black Saturday bushfires – The Black Saturday bushfires were a series of bushfires that ignited or were burning across the Australian state of Victoria, Australia on and around Saturday, February 7, 2009. The fires occurred during extreme bushfire-weather conditions and resulted in Australia's highest ever loss of life from a bushfire; 173 people died and 414 were injured.
  • 2009 L'Aquila earthquake – A 6.3 magnitude earthquake strikes near L'Aquila (Italy) on April 6, 2009, one of the worst in Italian history. 308 were pronounced dead and more than 65,000 were made homeless.
  • 2009 flu pandemic – A worldwide outbreak of Influenza A virus subtype H1N1 spread around the world forming a pandemic by June 2009.

2010s

The eye of Hurricane Irene as viewed from the International Space Station on August 24, 2011
Hurricane Maria destruction in Dominica in 2017.
  • 2010 Haiti earthquake – At least 230,000 are killed in Haiti after a massive earthquake on January 12, 2010. Three million people were made homeless.
  • 2010 Chile earthquake – A massive earthquake, magnitude 8.8, strikes the central Chilean coast on February 27, 2010.
  • 2010 Yushu earthquake – A large 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck the Yushu region of China in Qinghai near Tibet, on April 14, 2010, killing over 2,200 people.
  • 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull – A massive ash cloud is formed by the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull, on April 14, 2010, grounding flights across northwest Europe. Scientists began recording volcanic activity there in 2009 which increased through March 2010 culminating in the second phase eruption in April.
  • 2010 Pakistan floods – Began in July 2010 after record heavy monsoon rains. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan was worst affected. At least 1,600 people were killed, thousands were rendered homeless, and more than thirteen million people were affected.[57][58][59][60][61] Estimates from rescue service officials suggest the death toll may reach 3,000 victims.[62]
  • 2011 Queensland floods – Began in December 2010 primarily in Queensland. The flood causes thousands of people to evacuate. At least 200,000 people were affected by the flood. The flood continued throughout January 2011 in Queensland, and the estimated reduction in Australia's GDP is about A$30 billion.
  • Cyclone Yasi – A category 5 (Australian Scale) cyclone hits North Queensland with winds as strong as 290 km/hr (197 miles/hr) and devastates the residents of North Queensland.
  • February 2011 Christchurch earthquake – 185 people died in New Zealand after a 6.3-magnitude earthquake hit Christchurch on February 22, 2011, making it New Zealand's second-deadliest natural disaster after the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake.
  • 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami – On March 11, 2011, a catastrophic undersea earthquake of magnitude 9.0 occurred offshore of eastern Japan, the greatest in the country's history and created a massive tsunami which killed 15,894; it also triggered the Fukushima I nuclear accidents. The overall cost for the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accidents reached up to US$235 billion, making it the costliest natural disaster on record.
  • 2011 Super Outbreak – Regarded as the deadliest tornado outbreak ever recorded and dubbed the 2011 Super Outbreak, a catastrophic tornado outbreak on April 25–28 affected the Southern United States and killed over 330 people, most of whom were in or from Alabama. Damages are expected to be near or over $10 billion.
  • 2011 Joplin tornado – On May 22, 2011, a devastating EF5 tornado struck Joplin, Missouri resulting in 159 casualties, making it the deadliest tornado to hit the United States since 1947.
  • Tropical Storm Washi – Locally known as Sendong, it caused catastrophic flooding in the Philippine island of Mindanao on the night of December 16, 2011. The hardest hits were in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan City. Almost 1000 people perished, most of whom were sleeping, and President Benigno Aquino III declared a state of calamity four days later.
  • Hurricane Sandy – October 24–30, 2012 – kills at least 185 people in the Caribbean, Bahamas, United States and Canada. Considerable storm surge damage causes major disruption to the eastern seaboard of the United States.[63][64][65]
  • Typhoon Haiyan 2013 – kills more than 6,000 people in central Philippines. Considered to be one of the strongest storms ever, it brought major damage and loss of life to the Philippines, especially the islands of Leyte and Samar. A worldwide humanitarian effort began in the aftermath of the typhoon.
  • 2014 Southeast Europe floods – kill at least 80 people in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. Floodwaters caused over 2,000 landslides across the Balkan region, spreading damage across many towns and villages.
  • April 2015 Nepal earthquake – An earthquake of 7.8 magnitude kills almost 9,000 people, injures another 22,000 and leaves nearly 3 million people homeless in Central Nepal. The earthquake was so strong it was felt in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
  • 2016 Taiwan earthquake – An earthquake of 6.4 magnitude kills 117 people, injures 550, and 4 people were left missing. The earthquake resulted in 3 executives of the Weiguan developer being arrested under charges of professional negligence resulting in death.
  • August 2016 Central Italy earthquake – A 6.2 magnitude earthquake killed 299 people and severely damaged Amatrice, Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto.

2020s

Man-made disasters
Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling unit in the Gulf of Mexico on fire in 2010
  • On July 27, 2002, a Sukhoi Su-27 fighter crashes at an air show in Ukraine, killing 77 and injuring more than 100, making it the worst air show disaster in history.
  • On February 1, 2003, at the conclusion of the STS-107 mission, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates during reentry over Texas, killing all seven astronauts on board.
  • The Black Saturday bushfires – the deadliest bushfires in Australian history took place across the Australian state of Victoria on February 7, 2009 during extreme bushfire-weather conditions, resulting in 173 people killed, more than 500 injured, and around 7,500 homeless. The fires came after Melbourne recorded the highest-ever temperature (46.4 °C, 115 °F) of any capital city in Australia. The majority of the fires were ignited by either fallen or clashing power lines or deliberately lit.
  • On April 10, 2010, Polish President Lech Kaczyński, his wife and 94 other people, including dozens of government officials, are killed in a plane crash.
  • On April 20, 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig, operating in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, left eleven crewmen dead and resulted in a fire that sank the rig and caused a massive-scale oil spill[68] that may become one of the worst environmental disasters in United States history.[69] On June 18, 2010 oceanographer John Kessler said that the crude gushing from the well contains 40 percent methane, compared to about 5 percent found in typical oil deposits. Methane is a natural gas that could potentially suffocate marine life and create "dead zones" where oxygen is so depleted that nothing lives. "This is the most vigorous methane eruption in modern human history," Kessler said.[70] On June 20 an internal BP document was released by Congress revealing that BP estimated the flow could be as much as 100,000 barrels (4,200,000 US gallons; 16,000 cubic metres) per day under the circumstances that existed since the April 20 blowout.[71][72]

Pandemics and disease
Western African Ebola virus epidemic
U.S. yearly overdose deaths. More than 70,200 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2017.

Economics and industry

Sports

Association football is the most popular sport worldwide with the FIFA World Cup being the most viewed football event. Other sports such as rugby, cricket, baseball, basketball, ice hockey, tennis, and golf are popular globally. In cricket, the emergence of the Twenty20 format and the creation of the Indian Premier League led to changes in the nature of the sport. American swimmer Michael Phelps won an Olympic record setting 8 Gold medals at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

The Beijing Bird's Nest Stadium during the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Association football

Gridiron football
Quarterback Tom Brady led the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers during his career, appearing in 10 Super Bowls himself, the most ever.
  • In American college football, the sport saw the creation of the College Football Playoff, the first playoff for NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, the highest level of college football in the U.S. The series was dominated by two teams, the Clemson Tigers and Alabama Crimson Tide, at least one of which has played in every Playoff since its inception in 2014 and between them have won all but one of said championships. Prior to 2014, the method of determining the champion was done via the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), a single championship game that attempted to match the top two teams in the country using a series of polls and computer rankings to choose the top two teams. In the BCS era, the top teams were Alabama, which won three BCS Championships, and Florida State, LSU, and Oklahoma, which won two BCS Championships each. Nick Saban, who led both LSU and Alabama to one and seven national championships respectively, was the most dominant coach of his era, while quarterbacks dominated the Heisman Trophy, winning 16 of 20 during the first two decades of the 21st century. Several controversies over the payment of athletes dominated the sport, with Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush being forced to return his award over receiving improper benefits while maintaining amateur status, while officials and media continued to debate the possibility of paying athletes at all levels of college athletics.
  • In Canadian football, the league opened the 21st century facing an uncertain financial future, suffering from the failures of the experiment of trying to field Canadian football teams in the United States and having to contract a large number of teams at the end of the 20th century. The league fluctuated between 8 and 9 teams as two different Ottawa-based franchises failed during the first decade of the 21st century. The league found stability during the 2010s, and showed surprising parity between the teams, with all 9 teams appearing in at least one Grey Cup during the 2000s and 2010s, and with only the Montreal Alouettes winning back-to-back titles during those two decades, in 2009 and 2010. Quarterback Anthony Calvillo of the Alouettes was the face of the league during his career, winning three Most Outstanding Player Awards and setting several passing records in the process.

Golf
Tiger Woods was the most successful male golfer of the first two decades of the 20th century.
  • The 2002 Ryder Cup was won by Europe 15 and a half to USA's 12 and a half.
  • The 2004 Ryder Cup was won by Europe 18 and a half to USA's 9 and a half.
  • The 2006 Ryder Cup was won by Europe again 18 and a half to USA's 9 and a half.
  • The 2008 Ryder Cup was won by USA 16 and a half to Europe's 11 and a half.
  • The 2010 Ryder Cup was won by Europe 14 and a half to USA's 13 and a half.
  • The 2012 Ryder Cup was won by Europe 14 and a half to USA's 13 and a half.
  • The 2014 Ryder Cup was won by Europe 16 and a half to USA's 11 and a half
  • The 2016 Ryder Cup was won by USA 17 to Europe's 11.

Motorsport
The start of a race during the 2016 Supercars Championship in Australia
  • Dale Earnhardt passed away after a last-lap crash during the Daytona 500 in February 2001.
  • Michael Schumacher broke many records in the first few years of the century, including the record for most races won (91), most World Championships (7), and most pole positions (68) by the time he retired in 2006. In 2010, he announced his comeback to Formula One after three years out of the sport, retiring again in 2012.
  • Sebastian Vettel broke numerous records on his way to becoming Formula One's youngest ever world champion, in 2010 at age 23, and then the youngest ever double world champion, in 2011 at age 24.
  • Sébastien Loeb became the most successful rally driver ever, winning the World Rally Championship a record 9 consecutive times between 2004 and 2012. He also set new records for the most wins, podium finishes and points scored.
  • Casey Stoner won his second MotoGP world title (2007 and 2011), and announced his retirement from the sport at just 27 years of age, citing disagreement with the direction of the sport and a desire to spend more time with his family. His retirement became effective at the end of the 2012 MotoGP season. Stoner has won every MotoGP-branded race at least once.
  • Craig Lowndes became the first driver to reach 100 race wins in the V8 Supercars Championship.
  • Lewis Hamilton broke the record for most career pole positions in Formula One in 2019, and the record for most career wins in 2020.

Rugby Union

Tennis (Men)
  • Roger Federer won 20 Grand Slam titles (6 Australian Opens, 1 French Open, 8 Wimbledons, and 5 US Opens) to surpass Pete Sampras' record of 14.
  • Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic each completed a Career Grand Slam, winning the singles championships in the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open; Nadal also won the Olympic Singles gold medal in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics to complete a Golden Career Slam.
  • At the 2010 Wimbledon Championships, John Isner and Nicolas Mahut completed the longest tennis match ever. Isner won 6–4, 3–6, 6–7(7), 7–6(3), 70–68.
  • In 2019, Rafael Nadal became the first male player to win a single Grand Slam tournament (French Open) 12 times.

Tennis (Women)
  • Serena Williams won 23 Grand Slam titles (7 Australian Opens, 3 French Opens, 7 Wimbledons, and 6 US Opens) in the 21st century, to add to her 1999 US Open title.
  • Maria Sharapova became the first female Russian player to reach No.1 on August 22, 2005. She also retired in 2020.
  • China's Li Na won the 2011 French Open, becoming the first player, male or female, from that country to win a Grand Slam.
  • Belarusian Victoria Azarenka won the 2012 Australian Open, becoming the first player, male or female, from that country to win a Grand Slam, and also hold the No.1 ranking (taking over from Caroline Wozniacki).

Arts and entertainment

Arts
Main article: Contemporary art

Music
A. R. Rahman, an Indian composer, became the first-ever from the sub-continent to have won double Oscars for his original score and soundtrack in 2009.

At the beginning of the century, the compact disc (CD) was the standard form of music media, but alternative forms of music media started to take it place such as music downloading and online streaming. A resurgence in sales of vinyl records in the 2010s was driven by record collectors and audiophiles who prefer the sound of analog vinyl records to digital recordings. In 2020, for the first time since the 1980s, vinyl surpassed CDs as the primary form of physical media for consumers of music, though both were still surpassed by online streaming, which by the 2020s became the predominant way that people consumed music.[74] As of 2020, the most active music streaming services were YouTube (1 billion monthly music users, 20 million premium subscribers), Tencent Music (657 million monthly users, 42.7 million premium subscribers), 130 million premium subscribers), SoundCloud (175 million monthly users), Gaana (152 million monthly users), JioSaavn (104 million monthly users), Spotify (286 million monthly users, Pandora (60.9 million monthly users), and Apple Music (60 million subscribers).[75]

Television

As with music, the story of the first two decades of the 21st century was the growth of streaming television services in competition with older forms of television, such as Terrestrial television, cable television, and satellite television. The first major company to dominate the streaming service market was Netflix, which began as a DVD-delivery service in the late 1990s, transitioned into an online media streaming platform initially focused on delivering content produced by studios, then began to produce its own content, beginning with the popular and critically acclaimed series House of Cards in 2011. Netflix's success encouraged the creation of numerous other streaming services, such as Hulu, YouTube Premium, Prime Video, and Disney+, which within a year of its launch overtook Netflix as the most downloaded television streaming application.[76]

Issues and concerns
  • Global warming. Climate scientists have reached a consensus that the earth is undergoing significant anthropogenic (human-induced) global warming.[77] The resulting economic and ecological costs are hard to predict. Some scientists argue that human-induced global warming risks considerable losses in biodiversity and ecosystem services unless considerable sociopolitical changes are introduced, particularly in patterns of mass consumption and transportation.[78]
Global Peak Oil forecast. Virtually all economic sectors rely heavily on petroleum.
Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2006. Almost 97% of future population growth is expected to occur in developing countries.[80]
  • Population. The world's population demographics will shift considerably in this century, with the population of Europe and East Asia to decline considerably and the population of Africa and to a lesser extent South Asia to grow considerably. The United Nations estimates that world population will reach 9.8 billion by the year 2050.[81] Most of this growth will take place in the world's poorer countries, which may slow down the global reduction of poverty and combined with the effects of global warming may lead to large migrations.
    • Overconsumption and overpopulation. The United Nations estimates that world population will reach 9.2 billion by mid-century. Such growth raises questions of ecological sustainability and creates many economic and political disruptions. In response, many countries have adopted policies which either force or encourage their citizens to have fewer children, and others have limited immigration. Considerable debate exists over what the ultimate carrying capacity of the planet may be; whether or not population growth containment policies are necessary; to what degree growth can safely occur thanks to increased economic and ecological efficiency; and how distribution mechanisms should accommodate demographic shifts. Many developed countries (most notably Japan) will experience population decline, and the population debate is strongly tied with discussions about the distribution of wealth.
  • Poverty. Poverty remains the root cause of many of the world's other ills, including famine, disease, and insufficient education. Poverty contains many self-reinforcing elements (for instance, poverty can make education an unaffordable luxury, which tends to result in continuing poverty) that various aid groups hope to rectify in this century. Immense progress has been made in reducing poverty, especially in China and India but increasingly in Africa as well. Microcredit lending has also started to gain a profile as a useful anti-poverty tool.
  • Disease. AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria each kill over a million people annually. HIV remains without a cure or vaccine, and while new cases are declining it remains a major problem, especially for women.[82] Antibiotic resistance is a growing concern for organisms such as tuberculosis. Other diseases, such as SARS, COVID-19, ebola, the Zika virus and flu variations, are also causes for concern. The World Health Organization has warned of a possible coming flu pandemic resulting from bird flu mutations. In 2009, there was an outbreak of swine flu whose country of origin is still unknown.
In early 2019, more than 90% of world's 13,865 nuclear weapons were owned by Russia and the United States.[83]
  • War and terrorism. Although war and terror have declined so far in the early 21st century,[84] active conflicts continue around the world, such as the Syrian Civil War, the Yemeni Civil War and the War in Afghanistan. The 9/11 terrorist attacks triggered invasions of Afghanistan and partially and controversially Iraq. The War on Terror has seen controversies over civil liberties, accusations of torture, continued terrorist attacks and ongoing instability, violence, and military occupation. Violence continues in the Arab–Israeli conflict. Considerable concern remains about nuclear proliferation, especially in Iran and North Korea, and the availability of weapons of mass destruction to rogue groups.
    • War on drugs. Increasingly, the legal, social and military battle led by governments against drug cartels around the world show little results in ending drug trading and consumption, and a constant increase in the lives taken from this struggle. Notably, after 2006 in the Mexican Drug War, more than 100,000 human lives have been lost to this conflict. Some jurisdictions have enacted some degree of legalization or decriminalization of some kinds of drugs, notably including several U.S. states legalizing marijuana either for recreational or medical use.
  • Intellectual property. The increasing popularity of digital formats for entertainment media such as movies and music, and the ease of copying and distributing it via the Internet and peer-to-peer networks, has raised concerns in the media industry about copyright infringement. Much debate is proceeding about the proper bounds between protection of copyright, trademark and patent rights versus fair use and the public domain, where some argue that such laws have shifted greatly towards intellectual property owners and away from the interests of the general public in recent years, while others say that such legal change is needed to deal with a perceived threat of new technologies against the rights of authors and artists (or, as others put it, against the outmoded business models of the current entertainment industry). Domain name "cybersquatting" and access to patented drugs and generics to combat epidemics in third-world countries are other IP concerns.
  • Technology developments continue to change society. Communications and control technology continues to augment the intelligence of individual humans, collections of humans, and machines. Some, notably Ray Kurzweil, have predicted that by the middle of the century there will be a technological singularity if artificial intelligence that outsmarts humans is created. In addition, some economists have expressed concerns over technological unemployment.
  Marriage open to same-sex couples
  Death penalty for homosexuality

Astronomical events
Further information: List of future astronomical events § 21st century

See also

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Notes
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