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Gregorian Year
2008 (MMVIII) was
a leap year starting on
Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar,
the 2008th year of the Common Era (CE)
and Anno Domini (AD)
designations, the 8th year of the 3rd millennium, the 8th year of
the 21st century,
and the 9th year of the 2000s decade. 2008 was designated as: ·
International
Year of Languages[1] ·
International
Year of Planet Earth ·
International
Year of Sanitation ·
International
Year of the Potato Contents · 1Events · 2Births · 3Deaths Events[edit] January[edit] ·
January 1 – Cyprus and Malta adopt the euro.[2][3] ·
January 14 – At 19:04:39 UTC,
the unmanned MESSENGER space probe is at its closest approach
during its first flyby of the planet Mercury.[4] ·
January 21 – Stock markets around the
world plunge amid growing fears of a U.S. recession, fueled by the 2007 subprime
mortgage crisis.[5] ·
January 24 – A peace deal is signed
in Goma, Democratic
Republic of the Congo, ending the Kivu conflict.[6] February[edit] ·
February 4 – Iran opens
its first space center and launches a rocket into space.[7] ·
February 13 – Australian
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivers a formal apology to
the Stolen Generations.[8] ·
February 17 – Kosovo formally declares
independence from Serbia, with a mixed response from the
international community.[9][10] March[edit] ·
March–April
– Rising
food and fuel prices trigger riots and unrest in the Third World. ·
March 2 – Venezuela and Ecuador move troops
to the Colombian border, following a Colombian raid against FARC guerrillas
inside Ecuadorian territory, in which senior commander Raúl Reyes is killed.[11][12] ·
March 9 – The first European Space
Agency Automated
Transfer Vehicle, a cargo spacecraft for the International
Space Station, launches from Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana.[13] ·
March 24 – Bhutan holds its first-ever
general elections following the adoption of a new Constitution which
changed the country from an absolute monarchy to
a multiparty democracy.[14] ·
March 25 – African Union and Comoros forces invade the
rebel-held island of Anjouan, returning the
island to Comorian control.[15] April[edit] ·
April 22 – Surgeons at London's Moorfields Eye
Hospital perform the first successful operations using bionic eyes,
implanting them into two blind patients. May[edit] ·
May 2 – The Chaitén volcano
in Chile enters a new eruptive phase for
the first time since around 1640. ·
May 3 – Cyclone Nargis passes through Myanmar, killing more than 138,000 people.[16] ·
May 12 – An earthquake measuring 7.9 on
the moment magnitude
scale strikes Sichuan,
China, killing an estimated 87,000 people.[17] ·
May 23 ·
The Union of
South American Nations, an intergovernmental organization between
states in South America,
is founded.[18] ·
The International
Court of Justice awards Middle Rocks to Malaysia and Pedra Branca to Singapore, ending a 29-year territorial dispute between
the two countries.[19] ·
May 25 – NASA's
unmanned Phoenix spacecraft
becomes the first to land on the northern polar region of Mars.[20] ·
May 28 – The Legislature
Parliament of Nepal votes overwhelmingly in favor of
abolishing the country's 240-year-old monarchy,
turning the country into a republic.[21] ·
May 30 – The Convention
on Cluster Munitions is adopted in Dublin.[22] June[edit] ·
June 7–29 – Austria and Switzerland jointly host the UEFA Euro 2008 football tournament,
which is won by Spain. ·
June 11 ·
The Fermi
Gamma-ray Space Telescope is launched.[23] ·
Canadian
Prime Minister Stephen Harper formally
apologizes, on behalf of the Canadian government, to the country's First Nations for the Canadian
Indian residential school system.[24] ·
June 14 – Expo 2008 opens in Zaragoza, Spain, lasting to September 14,
with the topic "Water and sustainable development".[25] July[edit] ·
July 2 – Íngrid Betancourt and
14 other hostages are rescued from FARC rebels
by Colombian security forces.[26] ·
July 21 – Radovan
Karadžić, the first president of the Republika Srpska, is arrested in Belgrade, Serbia, on allegations of war crimes,
following a 12-year-long manhunt.[27] August[edit] ·
August 1 – Eleven mountaineers from
international expeditions die on K2,
the second-highest mountain on Earth in the worst single accident in the history of
K2 mountaineering. ·
August 6 – President Sidi Ould
Cheikh Abdallahi of Mauritania is deposed in a military
coup d'état.[28] ·
August 7 – Georgia invades
the breakaway state of South Ossetia, sparking a war with Russia as the latter intervenes in
support of the separatists in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.[29] ·
August 20 – Spanair Flight 5022 crashes
at Madrid–Barajas
Airport, killing 154 people on board. ·
August 8–24 – The 2008 Summer Olympics take
place in Beijing, China.[30] September[edit] ·
September 10 – The proton beam is circulated for the first time
in the Large Hadron
Collider, the world's
largest and highest-energy particle accelerator,
located at CERN, near Geneva, under the Franco-Swiss border.[31][32] ·
September 20 – A suicide
truck bomb explosion destroys the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing at least 54 and injuring
266.[33][34][35] ·
September 13 – Hurricane Ike makes landfall in Galveston, Texas ·
September 28 – SpaceX Falcon 1 becomes the world's first
privately developed space launch vehicle to
successfully make orbit.[36][37] ·
September 29 – Following the
bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual,
The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 777.68 points, hitherto the largest
single-day point loss in its history. October[edit] ·
October 3 – Global
financial crisis: U.S.
President George W. Bush signs the revised Emergency
Economic Stabilization Act into law, creating a 700 billion
dollar Treasury fund to purchase failing bank assets.[38] ·
October 7 – Spotify music streaming service is
launched in Sweden. ·
October 21 – The Large Hadron
Collider (LHC) is officially inaugurated at Geneva.[39][40][41][42] ·
October 22 – The Indian
Space Research Organisation successfully launches the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft on a lunar exploration mission.[43][44] November[edit] ·
November 1 – Satoshi Nakamoto published "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash
System".[45] ·
November 4 – Democratic U.S.
Senator Barack Obama is elected the
44th President
of the United States, becoming the first black President of the United States.[46][47][48] ·
November 19 – Claudia Castillo of Spain
becomes the first person to have a successful trachea transplant using a tissue-engineered organ.[49] ·
November 26–29 – Members of Lashkar-e-Taiba carry out four days of
coordinated bombing and shooting attacks across Mumbai, killing 164 people.[50] December[edit] ·
December 5 – Human remains found in
1991 are identified as Tsar Nicholas II of
Russia, using DNA analysis.[51] ·
December 10 – The Channel Island of Sark,
a British Crown dependency,
holds its first fully
democratic elections under a new constitutional arrangement,
becoming the last European territory to abolish feudalism.[52] ·
December 18 – The International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda finds Théoneste Bagosora and
two other senior Rwandan army officers guilty of genocide, crimes against
humanity and war crimes and sentences them to life imprisonment for
their role in the Rwandan genocide.[53] ·
December 23 – A military coup
d'état deposes the government of Guinea shortly after the death of
longtime President Lansana Conté.[54] ·
December 27 – Israel invades the Gaza Strip in response to rockets being
fired into Israeli territory by Hamas and due to weapons being smuggled
into the area.[55][56][57] ·
December 31 – An extra leap second (23:59:60) is added to end
the year. The last time this occurred was in 2005. Births[edit] ·
April 16 – Princess
Eléonore of Belgium ·
June 3 – Harshaali Malhotra,
Indian actress ·
July 15 – Iain Armitage, American actor ·
August 18 – Gordey Kolesov, Russian-Chinese chess player Deaths[edit] Main article: Deaths in 2008 January[edit]
·
January 2 – Galyani Vadhana, Princess of Naradhiwas,
Princess of Thailand (b. 1923) ·
January 3 – Choi Yo-sam, Korean boxer (b. 1972) ·
January 10 – Maila Nurmi, Finnish-American actress and
television personality (b. 1922) ·
January 11 – Edmund Hillary, New Zealand mountaineer,
explorer, and philanthropist (b. 1919) ·
January 15 – Brad Renfro, American actor (b. 1982) ·
January 16 – Nikola Kljusev, 1st Prime Minister of
Macedonia (b. 1927) ·
January 17 – Bobby Fischer, American chess grandmaster
and former World Chess Champion (b. 1943) ·
January 19 – Suzanne Pleshette,
American actress (b. 1937) ·
Heath Ledger, Australian actor (b. 1979) ·
Claude Piron, Swiss linguist and
psychologist (b. 1931) ·
January 25 – Aziz Sedky, 36th Prime Minister of Egypt
(b. 1920) ·
January 26 – George Habash, Palestinian politician
(b. 1926) ·
Gordon B. Hinckley,
American Mormon leader (b. 1910) ·
Suharto, 2nd President of
Indonesia (b. 1921) ·
January 28 – Archbishop Christodoulos of
Athens (b. 1939) ·
January 29 – Margaret Truman, American singer and writer
(b. 1924) February[edit]
·
February 2 – Joshua Lederberg, American Nobel molecular
biologist (b. 1925) ·
February 5 – Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi, Indian spiritual leader (b. 1917) ·
February 7 – Andrew Bertie, 78th Grand Master of
the Order of Malta (b. 1929) ·
February 9 – Baba Amte, Indian social activist (b. 1914) ·
February 10 – Roy Scheider, American actor (b. 1932) ·
Tom Lantos, American politician (b. 1928) ·
Alfredo Reinado, East Timorese rebel
(b. 1967) ·
Imad Mughniyah, Lebanese militant (b. 1962) ·
Badri
Patarkatsishvili, Georgian businessman and politician (b. 1955) ·
Kon Ichikawa, Japanese film director
(b. 1915) ·
Henri Salvador, French singer (b. 1917) ·
February 18 – Alain Robbe-Grillet,
French writer and filmmaker (b. 1922) ·
Natalia Bessmertnova,
Russian ballerina (b. 1941) ·
Yegor Letov, Russian singer (b. 1964) ·
Janez Drnovšek,
2-Time Prime Minister and 2nd President of Slovenia (b. 1950) ·
Paul Frère, Belgian racing driver (b. 1917) ·
William F. Buckley
Jr., American author and conservative commentator (b. 1925) ·
Ivan Rebroff, German singer (b. 1931) ·
February 29 – Tommy Glencross, Scottish boxer (b. 1947) March[edit]
·
March 1 – Raúl Reyes, Colombian guerrilla (b. 1948) ·
March 2 – Jeff Healey, Canadian musician (b. 1966) ·
March 3 ·
Giuseppe Di Stefano,
Italian operatic tenor (b. 1921) ·
Norman
Smith, English singer and record producer (b. 1923) ·
March 4 – Gary Gygax, American writer and game
designer (b. 1938) ·
March 5 – Joseph Weizenbaum,
German-American author and computer scientist (b. 1923) ·
March 6 – Peter Poreku Dery,
Ghanaian cardinal (b. 1918) ·
March 12 – Howard Metzenbaum,
American politician (b. 1917) ·
March 14 – Chiara Lubich, Italian Catholic activist
(b. 1920) ·
March 18 – Anthony Minghella,
English film director and screenwriter (b. 1954) ·
March 19 ·
Arthur C. Clarke, English author, inventor,
and futurist (b. 1917) ·
Hugo Claus, Flemish writer, painter and film
director (b. 1929) ·
Paul Scofield, English actor (b. 1922) ·
March 22 – Adolfo Suárez Rivera,
Mexican cardinal (b. 1927) ·
March 24 ·
Neil Aspinall, British record producer and
business executive (b. 1942) ·
Richard Widmark, American actor (b. 1914) ·
March 26 – Manuel Marulanda, Colombian guerrilla
(b. 1930) ·
March 27 – Jean-Marie Balestre,
French sports executive (b. 1921) ·
March 30 – Dith Pran, Cambodian-American photojournalist
(b. 1942) ·
March 31 – Jules Dassin, American film director
(b. 1911) April[edit]
·
April 3 – Hrvoje
Ćustić, Croatian footballer (b. 1983) ·
April 5 – Charlton Heston, American actor (b. 1923) ·
April 8 – Stanley Kamel, American actor (b. 1943) ·
April 10 – Ernesto
Corripio y Ahumada, Mexican cardinal (b. 1919) ·
April 12 – Patrick Hillery, 6th President of Ireland
(b. 1923) ·
April 13 – John Archibald
Wheeler, American theoretical physicist (b. 1911) ·
April 14 – Ollie Johnston, American animator (b. 1912) ·
April 15 – Benoît Lamy, Belgian motion picture
writer-director (b. 1945) ·
April 16 – Edward Norton Lorenz,
American mathematician and meteorologist (b. 1917) ·
April 17 – Aimé Césaire,
French Martinican poet and politician (b. 1913) ·
April 29 – Albert Hofmann, Swiss chemist and writer
(b. 1906) May[edit]
·
May 1 – Anthony Mamo, 1st President of Malta
(b. 1909) ·
May 2 – Philipp von
Boeselager, German military officer (b. 1917) ·
May 3 – Leopoldo
Calvo-Sotelo, Spanish Prime Minister (b. 1926) ·
May 8 – François Sterchele,
Belgian footballer (b. 1982) ·
May 10 ·
Leyla Gencer, Turkish soprano (b. 1928) ·
Jessica Jacobs, Australian actress and
singer (b. 1990) ·
May 12 ·
Robert Rauschenberg,
American pop artist (b. 1925) ·
Irena Sendler, Polish humanitarian (b. 1910) ·
May 13 ·
Saad
Al-Abdullah Al-Salim Al-Sabah, 4th Emir of Kuwait (b. 1930) ·
Bernardin Gantin, Beninese cardinal
(b. 1922) ·
May 15 – Willis Lamb, American Nobel physicist
(b. 1913) ·
May 17 – Roberto
García-Calvo Montiel, Spanish judge (b. 1942) ·
May 23 – Cornell Capa, Hungarian-American
photographer (b. 1918) ·
May 26 ·
Sydney Pollack, American actor, director and
producer (b. 1934) ·
Koloa Talake, 7th Prime Minister of Tuvalu
(b. 1934) ·
May 28 – Sven Davidson, Swedish tennis player
(b. 1928) ·
May 29 – Harvey Korman, American actor and comedian
(b. 1927) June[edit]
·
June 1 ·
Tommy Lapid, Israeli television presenter,
journalist, and politician (b. 1931) ·
Yves Saint
Laurent, French fashion designer (b. 1936) ·
June 2 ·
Bo Diddley, American musician (b. 1928) ·
Mel Ferrer, American actor, director, and
producer (b. 1917) ·
June 5 – Jameson Mbilini
Dlamini, 7th Prime Minister of Swaziland (b. 1921) ·
June 4 – Agata Mróz-Olszewska,
Polish volleyball player (b. 1982) ·
June 7 ·
Mustafa Khalil, 40th Prime Minister of Egypt
(b. 1920) ·
Dino Risi, Italian director (b. 1916) ·
June 8 – Šaban
Bajramović, Serbian musician (b. 1936) ·
June 9 ·
Karen Asrian, Armenian chess grandmaster
(b. 1980) ·
Algis Budrys, Lithuanian-American science
fiction writer (b. 1931) ·
June 10 – Chinghiz Aitmatov,
Kyrgyzstani writer (b. 1928) ·
June 11 ·
Ove Andersson, Swedish rally driver
(b. 1939) ·
Võ Văn
Kiệt, 5th Prime Minister of Vietnam (b. 1922) ·
June 13 – Tim Russert, American journalist (b. 1950) ·
June 15 – Stan Winston, American special effects and
makeup artist (b. 1946) ·
June 17 – Cyd Charisse, American actress and dancer
(b. 1922) ·
June 18 – Jean Delannoy, French film director
(b. 1908) ·
June 22 – George Carlin, American author, actor, and
comedian (b. 1937) ·
June 23 – Arthur Chung, 1st President of Guyana
(b. 1918) ·
June 24 – Leonid Hurwicz, American Nobel economist and
mathematician (b. 1917) ·
June 27 – Sam Manekshaw, Indian Field Marshal
(b. 1914) ·
June 28 – Ruslana Korshunova,
Kazakhstani model (b. 1987) ·
June 29 – Don S. Davis, American actor (b. 1942) July[edit]
·
July 4 ·
Jesse Helms, American politician (b. 1921) ·
Evelyn Keyes, American actress (b. 1916) ·
July 5 – René Harris, 4-Time President of Nauru
(b. 1947) ·
July 11 – Michael E. DeBakey,
American surgeon and inventor (b. 1908) ·
July 12 – Tony Snow, American political commentator
(b. 1955) ·
July 13 – Bronisław
Geremek, Polish social historian and politician (b. 1932) ·
July 15 – György Kolonics,
Hungarian canoeist (b. 1972) ·
July 16 – Jo Stafford, American singer (b. 1917) ·
July 22 – Estelle Getty, American actress (b. 1923) ·
July 25 ·
Johnny Griffin, American saxophonist
(b. 1928) ·
Randy Pausch, American author and computer
scientist (b. 1960) ·
July 27 – Youssef Chahine, Egyptian film director
(b. 1926) ·
July 29 – Mate Parlov, Croatian boxer (b. 1948) August[edit]
·
August 1 – Harkishan Singh
Surjeet, Indian politician (b. 1916) ·
August 3 – Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn, Russian Nobel writer (b. 1918) ·
August 4 – Anita Farra, Italian actress (b. 1905) ·
August 9 ·
Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian poet (b. 1941) ·
Bernie Mac, American actor and comedian
(b. 1957) ·
August 10 – Isaac Hayes, American musician (b. 1942) ·
August 11 – Fred Sinowatz, Austrian politician (b. 1929) ·
August 13 – Henri Cartan, French mathematician (b. 1904) ·
August 15 – Jerry Wexler, American music producer
(b. 1917) ·
Ronnie Drew, Irish singer (b. 1934) ·
Masanobu Fukuoka, Japanese microbiologist
(b. 1913) ·
Levy Mwanawasa, 3rd President of Zambia
(b. 1948) ·
LeRoi Moore, American saxophonist (b. 1961) ·
August 20 – Hua Guofeng, Chairman of the Communist Party
and Chinese premier (b. 1921) ·
August 23 – Thomas Huckle Weller,
American Nobel virologist (b. 1915) ·
August 28 – Phil Hill, American race car driver
(b. 1927) September[edit]
·
Don LaFontaine, American voice actor
(b. 1940) ·
Jerry Reed, American country singer
(b. 1937) ·
September 2 – Bill Melendez, Mexican-American character
animator, film director, voice artist and producer (b. 1916) ·
Antonio Innocenti,
Italian cardinal (b. 1915) ·
Anita Page, American actress (b. 1910) ·
September 9 – Nouhak Phoumsavanh,
3rd President of Laos (b. 1910) ·
September 12 – David Foster Wallace,
American writer (b. 1962) ·
September 15 – Richard Wright,
English keyboardist (b. 1943) ·
September 18 – Mauricio Kagel, Argentine composer (b. 1931) ·
September 21 – Dingiri Banda
Wijetunga, 9th Prime Minister and 4th President of Sri Lanka
(b. 1916) ·
September 26 – Paul Newman, American actor (b. 1925) October[edit]
·
October 1 – Boris Yefimov, Russian political cartoonist
(b. 1900) ·
October 6 – Paavo Haavikko, Finnish poet (b. 1931) ·
October 8 – George Emil Palade,
Romanian Nobel cell biologist (b. 1912) ·
October 10 – Alexey Prokurorov,
Russian cross-country skier (b. 1964) ·
October 11 – Jörg Haider, Austrian politician (b. 1950) ·
Alexei Cherepanov,
Russian Hockey Player (b. 1989) ·
Guillaume Depardieu,
French actor (b. 1971) ·
Antonio
José González Zumárraga, Ecuadorian cardinal (b. 1925) ·
October 20 – Sœur Emmanuelle,
Belgian-born French nun (b. 1908) ·
October 25 – Muslim
Magomayev, Azerbaijani singer (b. 1942) ·
October 26 – Tony Hillerman, American writer (b. 1925) ·
October 29 – William Wharton,
American author (b. 1925) ·
October 31 – Studs Terkel, American author and liberal
commentator (b. 1912) November[edit]
·
Jacques Piccard, Swiss explorer and engineer
(b. 1922) ·
Yma Sumac, Peruvian soprano (b. 1923) ·
November 2 – Joseph Alliluyev, Russian cardiologist
(b. 1945)[importance?] ·
Michael Crichton, American author and
producer (b. 1942) ·
Juan Camilo Mouriño,
Mexican politician (b. 1971) ·
November 9 – Miriam Makeba, South African singer
(b. 1932) ·
November 10 – Kiyoshi Itō, Japanese mathematician
(b. 1915) ·
November 12 – Mitch Mitchell, English drummer (b. 1946) ·
November 14 – Tsvetanka Khristova,
Bulgarian athlete (b. 1962) ·
November 22 – Ibrahim Nasir, 2nd President of the Maldives
(b. 1926) ·
November 27 – V. P. Singh, 7th Prime Minister of India
(b. 1931) ·
November 29 – Jørn Utzon, Danish architect (b. 1918) December[edit]
·
December 1 – Mikel Laboa, Basque singer and songwriter
(b. 1934) ·
Frank Crean, Australian politician (b. 1916) ·
Odetta, American singer (b. 1930) ·
December 4 – Forrest J Ackerman,
American magazine editor, science fiction writer, and literary agent
(b. 1916) ·
Patriarch
Alexy II of Moscow, Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church (b. 1928) ·
Nina Foch, Dutch-born American actress
(b. 1924) ·
December 8 – Robert Prosky, American actor (b. 1930) ·
Yury Glazkov, Russian cosmonaut (b. 1939) ·
Dražan Jerković,
Croatian football player and manager (b. 1936) ·
Daniel Carleton
Gajdusek, American Nobel physician (b. 1923) ·
Bettie Page, American pin-up model (b. 1923) ·
Avery Dulles, American cardinal (b. 1918) ·
Van Johnson, American actor (b. 1916) ·
Tassos Papadopoulos,
5th President of Cyprus (b. 1934) ·
December 13 – Horst Tappert, German actor (b. 1923) ·
December 15 – León Febres Cordero,
35th President of Ecuador (b. 1931) ·
Majel Barrett, American actress (b. 1932) ·
Mark Felt, American FBI agent (b. 1913) ·
Joseph Conombo, 3rd Prime Minister of
Burkina Faso (b. 1917) ·
Olga
Lepeshinskaya, Russian ballerina (b. 1916) ·
Robert Mulligan, American director (b. 1925) ·
December 22 – Lansana Conté, 2nd President of Guinea
(b. 1934) ·
Samuel P. Huntington,
American political scientist (b. 1927) ·
Harold Pinter, English playwright (b. 1930) ·
December 25 – Eartha Kitt, American singer and actress
(b. 1927) ·
December 29 – Freddie Hubbard, American jazz trumpeter
(b. 1938) Nobel Prizes[edit]
·
Chemistry – Martin Chalfie, Osamu Shimomura, and Roger Y. Tsien ·
Literature – Jean-Marie
Gustave Le Clézio ·
Physics – Makoto
Kobayashi, Toshihide Maskawa,
and Yoichiro Nambu ·
Physiology
or Medicine – Françoise
Barré-Sinoussi, Harald zur Hausen,
and Luc Montagnier New English words[edit] ·
Bitcoin ·
burner
phone ·
dumpster
fire ·
exome ·
hate-watch ·
mansplain ·
photobomb[58] See also |
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