2021 – Year In Review
January
January 6 – Supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump storm the United States Capitol, disrupting certification of the 2020 presidential election and forcing Congress to evacuate. Five people died during the riot, including a police officer and a woman who was shot and killed inside the Capitol building. The event is classified by the Justice Department and FBI as a domestic terrorist attack and drew international condemnation.
January 20 – Joe Biden is inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States.
January 26 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases exceeds 100 million worldwide.
January 29 – A short squeeze resulted in a 1,500% increase in GameStop’s (a video-game retail chain that has not sold an actual video game since the Clinton administration) share price over the course of two weeks, reaching an all-time intraday high of US$483.00 on the New York Stock Exchange due to a coordinated effort by the Reddit community r/wallstreetbets through taking advantage of a short squeeze margin-call algorithm to leverage the arbitrage and thus create a classic liquidity debenture.
February
February 1 – A coup d’état in Myanmar removes Aung San Suu Kyi from power and restores military rule leading to widespread demonstrations across the country.
February 18 – NASA’s Mars 2020 mission (containing the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter drone) lands on Mars at Jezero Crater, after seven months of travel.
February 19 – The United States officially rejoins the Paris Agreement, 107 days after leaving.
February 25 – COVID-19 pandemic: The global death toll from COVID-19 surpasses 2.5 million.
March
March 15 – Bitcoin breaks through the $60,000 mark.
March 5 – Dr. Seuss joins the lengthening list of individuals who are deemed to be problematic by the National Education Association, which also includes George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Pepe LePew, and Mr. Potato Head.
March 17 – In March, the U.S. government unveiled its plan to distribute the third stimulus check to tens of millions of Americans. The third stimulus checks are worth up to $1,400 per qualifying individual and each of his or her dependents.
People started looking for more information about when they would be getting their checks and if there had been any changes in the amount they would receive.
March 19 – India’s health ministry reported 4,529 deaths from COVID-19 in a single day and another 267,122 new cases. Covid-19 infection numbers have doubled and more than 100,000 deaths have been recorded amid shortages of hospital beds, oxygen, and critical drugs.
March 23 – Ever Given, one of the largest container ships in the world, runs aground and obstructs the Suez Canal, disrupting international shipping and global trade. The ship is freed on March 29th driving many multinational companies to diversify their supply chains.
March 25 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of vaccinations administered worldwide exceeds 500 million.
April
April 2 – Russia warns NATO against sending any troops to aid Ukraine, amid reports of a large Russian military build-up on its borders.
April 13 – Japan’s government approves the dumping of radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean over the course of 30 years, with the full support of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The decision is opposed by China, South Korea, and Taiwan.
April – 17 COVID-19 pandemic: The global death toll from COVID-19 surpasses 3 million.
April 19
- NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter, part of the Mars 2020 mission, performs the first powered flight, ascending nearly 10 feet, on another planet in history.
- Raúl Castro resigns as First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party, ending more than 62 years of rule by the Castro brothers in Cuba.
April 24 – 24 COVID-19 pandemic: The number of vaccinations administered worldwide exceeds 1 billion. Half of these doses have been administered in just three countries (the United States, China and India)
April 29 – The China National Space Administration launches the first module of its Tiangong space station, named Tianhe, beginning a two-year effort to build a space station in orbit.
May
May 2 – The SpaceX Crew-1 mission ends, returning four crew members of Expedition 64 and 65 to Earth from the International Space Station aboard Crew Dragon Resilience.
May 5 – SpaceX successfully flies, lands, and recovers a Starship prototype for the first time, after four unsuccessful previous attempts.
May – 7 Created in 2013 as a parody of Bitcoin, Dogecoin saw record trading levels. This was in part due to Elon Musk supporting the cryptocurrency. The Dogecoin market capitalization surged to a peak of $88 billion, worth more than three-quarters of the companies in the S&P 500.
May – 14 The China National Space Administration lands its Zhurong rover at Utopia Planitia on Mars, making China the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the planet and only the second to land a rover.
May 24 – A coup d’état in Mali removes interim President Bah Ndaw and the acting Prime Minister, Moctar Ouane, from power and restores military rule leading to the country being suspended from the Economic Community of the West African States and the African Union, as well as France suspending its military operations in the country.
May 26 – Shell becomes the first company to be legally mandated to align its carbon emissions with the Paris climate accord, following a landmark court ruling in the Netherlands.
June
June 5 – The G7 agrees on a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% intended to prevent tax avoidance by some of the world’s biggest multinationals.
June 7 – The Juno spacecraft performs its only flyby of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, the first flyby of the moon by any spacecraft in over 20 years.
June 9 – The Legislative Assembly of El Salvador passes legislation to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in the country, becoming the first country to adopt the cryptocurrency alongside the U.S. dollar – the world’s reserve currency.
June 10 – An annular solar eclipse is visible from Canada, Greenland, the North Pole, and the Russian Far East.
June 11 – June 13 – World leaders meet at the 47th G7 summit, hosted by the United Kingdom, with topics of discussion including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and the corporate taxation of multinationals.
June -12 Critical race theory, the notion that racism is ingrained in American society and comes from how the nation became formed, becomes a major culture war in the United States with demonstrations playing out in the hall of state legislatures in North Carolina and Virginia.
June 13 – Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest-serving prime minister of Israel, is voted out of office; Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid are sworn in as Prime Minister of Israel and as Alternate Prime Minister of Israel, respectively.
June 17 – The China National Space Administration sends its first three astronauts to occupy the Tiangong Space Station, the country’s first space station.
June 20 – COVID-19 pandemic: Brazil becomes the second country to surpass half a million deaths from the virus.
June 24 – Surfside condominium collapse: A portion of the Champlain South Towers condominium building collapses in Surfside, Florida, United States, leaving 98 people dead. One survivor was pulled from the wreckage while 35 others were evacuated from the uncollapsed section of the building.
June 29 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of vaccinations administered worldwide exceeds 3 billion.
July
July 3 – Over 130 wildfires, fuelled by lightning strikes, burn through Western Canada following a record-breaking heatwave in North America that results in over 600 deaths.
July 8 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of deaths from COVID-19 surpasses 4 million.
July 12 – 2021 European floods: Heavy rain causes flooding in the border region of Germany and Belgium, resulting in 229 deaths, including 184 in Germany, 42 in Belgium with 1 person still missing there, and 2 in Romania. The event is attributed to a slowed jetstream caused by climate change.
July 19 – Blue Origin successfully conducts its first human test flight, with a reusable New Shepard rocket delivering four crew members into space: its founder Jeff Bezos, Bezos’ brother Mark, 18-year-old Oliver Daemen (who becomes the youngest person to go into space), and 82-year-old aviator and Mercury 13 member Wally Funk.
July 23–August 8 – The 2020 Summer Olympics were held in Tokyo, Japan. They were originally scheduled for 24 July–9 August 2020, but were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
July 25 – Tunisian president Kais Saied formally takes power in the country, suspending the parliament and sacking the prime minister.
July 28 – The first direct observation of light from behind a black hole is reported, confirming Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
August
August 3 – Wildfires in Greece begin after a historic heatwave.
August 9 – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases the first part of its Sixth Assessment Report, which concludes that the effects of human-caused climate change are now “widespread, rapid, and intensifying”
August 14 – A 7.2-magnitude earthquake strikes Haiti, killing more than 2,100 people.
August 26 – 2021 Kabul airport attack: At least 182 people are killed, including 13 U.S. service members, in a suicide bomb attack at Kabul airport.
August 27 – The United States launches an airstrike killing the Islamic State member who is believed to have planned the Kabul airport bombings.
August 29 – Hurricane Ida strikes New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.
August 30 – The United States withdraws its last remaining troops from Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, ending 20 years of military operations in Afghanistan. As an immediate consequence of the withdrawal, the Taliban militia takes over the country and the government. The event, which was broadcast in near real-time, caused widespread panic among the citizens as some attempted to flee the country.
September
September 7 – El Salvador becomes the first country in the world to accept Bitcoin as an official currency.
September 14 – North Korea demonstrates two short-range ballistic missiles that land just outside Japan’s territorial waters; and then only hours later South Korea demonstrates its first submarine-launched ballistic missile.
September 15 – AUKUS: A trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States is formed, to counter China’s military power and influence in the Pacific and the South China Sea. This includes enabling Australia to build its first nuclear-powered submarine fleet.
September 15 – Several ministers of the Argentine president Alberto Fernández’s cabinet resign after the government’s defeat in the primary elections, triggering a political crisis in the country.
September 16 – Inspiration4 launched by SpaceX becomes the first all-civilian spaceflight, carrying a four-person crew on a three-day orbit of the Earth.
September 19 – The 2021 Russian legislative election is held, with the United Russia party winning nearly 50% of the vote.
September 20 – The 2021 Canadian federal election is held, with Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party retaining a minority government
September 26 – The 2021 German federal election is held, with the Social Democratic Party beating out the CDU/CSU coalition.
October
October 3 – The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and assorted media partners publish a set of 11.9 million documents leaked from 14 financial services companies known as the Pandora Papers, revealing offshore financial activities that involve multiple current and former world leaders.
October 4 – Fumio Kishida becomes the 100th Prime Minister of Japan, succeeding Yoshihide Suga.
October 6 – The World Health Organization endorses the first malaria vaccine.
October 9 – Sebastian Kurz announces his resignation as Chancellor of Austria as a result of a corruption probe launched against him.
October 13 – Blue Origin successfully conducts another flight, with its New Shepard rocket delivering four crew members into space that will include 90-year-old “Star Trek” actor William Shatner, who becomes the oldest person to go into space.
October 16 – The Lucy spacecraft is launched by NASA, the first mission to explore the Trojan asteroids.
October 25 – The Sudanese military launches a coup against the government. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok is placed under house arrest. President Abdel Fattah al-Burhan declares a state of emergency and announces the dissolution of the government.
October 26 – American military and intelligence officials express concern over reports that China has tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile.
November
November 1 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of recorded deaths from COVID-19 surpasses 5 million.
November 11 – SpaceX launches the Crew-3 mission, carrying four Expedition 66 crew members to the International Space Station.
November 16 – Russia draws international condemnation following an anti-satellite weapon test that creates a cloud of space debris, threatening the International Space Station.
November 24 – NASA launches the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the first attempt to deflect an asteroid for the purpose of learning how to protect Earth.
November 25 – COVID-19 pandemic: The United Kingdom becomes the fourth country to surpass 10 million COVID-19 cases after the United States, India, and Brazil.
November 26 – COVID-19 pandemic: The World Health Organization convenes an emergency meeting in Geneva amid concerns over Omicron, a highly mutated variant of COVID-19 first identified in South Africa that appears more infectious than Delta.
November 30 – Barbados becomes a republic on its 55th anniversary of independence while remaining a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.
November 31 – The U.S. government said the consumer price index, which measures the average cost of common goods and services over time, and is the most common measure of inflation, soared 6.2% from October 2020 to October 2021 — the biggest 12-month jump since 1990, according to The Associated Press.
December
December 6 – The United States announces a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing in response to China’s human rights record. Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia join shortly after.
December 7 – COVID-19 pandemic: The United States becomes the first country to surpass 50 million COVID-19 cases.
December 12 – COVID-19 pandemic: Russia becomes the fifth country to surpass 10 million COVID-19 cases after the United States, India, Brazil, and the United Kingdom.
December 25 – NASA, ESA, the Canadian Space Agency, and the Space Telescope Science Institute launch the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope.
December 31 – On the last day of the year, the COVID pandemic is ending 2021 with a bang: health authorities around the world have confirmed more than 1.2M new cases in a 24-hour time span – a new record. The United States also booked a new record of its own, with 355.9K new COVID cases, dragging its 7-day average to a new record high as well.
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