January 

8: MEXICO - Crime boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is arrested six months after a spectacular prison escape.
10: MUSIC - Death of David Bowie.
15: BURKINA FASO - 30 people, mainly Westerners, are killed during a raid claimed by the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Murabitoun group on a hotel and restaurant in Ouagadougou.
16: IRAN - Iran’s historic nuclear deal with global powers comes into force.
16: TAIWAN - Tsai Ing-wen of the main opposition party is voted the island’s first female president in a landslide victory over the ruling Kuomintang, as voters reject closer China ties.

February
11: SCIENCE - Scientists say they have glimpsed gravitational waves predicted by Albert Einstein.
12: VATICAN - In Cuba, Pope Francis meets Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill—the first such meeting between the heads of their two branches of the Church in nearly 1,000 years.

March
13: IVORY COAST - An attack claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb leaves 19 dead in a seaside resort.
18: TURKEY/EU - Turkish and EU leaders agree a deal to curb the huge flow of asylum seekers to Europe, aimed at easing the biggest migration crisis since World War II.
20-22: US/CUBA - US President Barack Obama holds talks with Cuban counterpart Raul Castro in Havana, setting aside a bitter five decade standoff between Washington and the communist island.
22: BELGIUM - Suicide bombings at Brussels airport and a metro station blamed on a cell linked to the Islamic State group kill 32 people.
27: PAKISTAN - A Taliban suicide bomber attacks a park crowded with families on Easter Sunday, killing 75 including many children.
30: MYANMAR - Aung San Suu Kyi’s democracy movement takes power after 50 years of military rule.
30: LIBYA - A UN-backed Government of National Accord takes office in Tripoli headed by Fayez al-Sarraj

April
3: PANAMA PAPERS - A massive leak of 11.5 million documents allegedly exposes the secret offshore dealings of aides to Russian President Vladimir Putin, world leaders and celebrities including Barcelona’s Lionel Messi.
16: ECUADOR - A 7.8-magnitude quake kills more than 670 people and injures almost 6,300.

May
9: PHILIPPINES - Firebrand politician Rodrigo Duterte secures a landslide presidential victory built on foul-mouthed populist tirades.
21: AFGHANISTAN - Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour is killed in a US air strike.
27: US/JAPAN - Obama pays tribute to victims of the world’s first atomic bomb and calls for an end to nuclear weapons as he makes a historic visit to the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
30: CHAD - Former president Hissene Habre is sentenced to life in prison for war crimes by a special African court in Dakar.

June
4: BOXING - Death of triple world champion Muhammad Ali.
12: UNITED STATES - Forty-nine people are killed when a gunman who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group opens fire and seizes hostages at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The gunman is killed in a shootout with police.
23: BRITAIN - Britain votes by almost 52 percent to leave the European Union in a shock referendum result. Prime Minister David Cameron steps down and is replaced in July by Theresa May.
28: TURKEY - Forty-seven people are killed in a triple suicide bombing and gun attack at Istanbul’s main airport, one of a series of bloody attacks blamed on IS or Kurdish guerrillas.

July
3: IRAQ - More than 300 people are killed when a suicide car bomber attacks a busy shopping area in Baghdad. The blast is claimed by IS.
8-11: SOUTH SUDAN - At least 300 people die in clashes between forces backing President Salva Kiir and rival Riek Machar.
14: FRANCE - A Tunisian national rams a truck into people celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, killing 86. IS claims the attack.
15: TURKEY - A rogue military faction tries to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a failed coup.
23: AFGHANISTAN - IS jihadists claim responsibility for twin explosions that rip through crowds of Shiite Hazaras in Kabul, killing 85 people in the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since 2001.
26: AVIATION - Solar Impulse 2 becomes the first aircraft to circle the globe powered only by the sun.

August
5: OLYMPIC GAMES - The Rio summer Olympic Games open in Brazil, the first in Latin America.
9: RUSSIA/TURKEY/SYRIA - Putin and Erdogan hold their first meeting since a bitter feud erupted over Ankara’s downing of a Russian warplane over the Turkey-Syria border.
24: ITALY - A powerful quake hits mountain villages in a remote area straddling the regions of Umbria, Marche and Lazio. The small town of Amatrice bears the brunt of the earthquake that kills 297 people and injures hundreds more.
24: SYRIA/TURKEY - Turkey launches an offensive in Syria targeting Kurdish rebels and IS fighters.
31: BRAZIL - President Dilma Rousseff is impeached for illegally manipulating the national budget.

September
1: VENEZUELA - Mass street protests take place, with the opposition seeking a recall referendum against President Nicolas Maduro.
4: VATICAN - Pope Francis declares Mother Teresa of Kolkata a saint.
9: NORTH KOREA - Pyongyang carries out its fifth and most powerful nuclear test to date.
28: ISRAEL - Death of former president and Nobel laureate Shimon Peres.
30: SPACE - Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft concludes a 12-year odyssey with a controlled crash-landing onto the comet it orbited and probed for two years in a quest to demystify the Solar System’s origins.

October
4: HAITI - Hurricane Matthew leaves more than 540 dead, devastating the southwest of the country.
8: YEMEN - More than 140 people are killed when air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition supporting President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi against Huthi rebels hit a funeral ceremony.
13: MUSIC - The Nobel Literature Prize is awarded to US singer/songwriter Bob Dylan.
17: IRAQ - Iraqi forces launch an offensive aimed at retaking Mosul, IS’s last stronghold in the country. Since the launch of the assault, more than 100,000 people have fled.

November
8: UNITED STATES - Republican billionaire Donald Trump defeats Hillary Clinton to take the US presidency, stunning America and the world in an explosive upset fuelled by a wave of grassroots anger.
24: COLOMBIA - President Juan Manuel Santos, the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and FARC guerrilla leader Rodrigo “Timochenko” Londono sign a new peace deal to end their half-century conflict.
25: CUBA - Death of revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.

December
1: THAILAND - Maha Vajiralongkorn is crowned king following the death in October of his father, Bhumibol Adulyadej, who had reigned for 70 years.
1: GAMBIA - Adama Barrow wins the presidential election. Incumbent Yahya Jammeh initially accepts defeat but later challenges the result
1: FRANCE - Socialist President Francois Hollande announces he will not seek re-election next year.
4: ITALY - Italian voters overwhelmingly reject constitutional reform proposals in a referendum. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi resigns and is replaced by Paolo Gentiloni.
7: GHANA - Opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo wins presidential election.
9: SOUTH KOREA - Lawmakers impeach President Park Geun-Hye over a corruption scandal.
11: TURKEY - Twin bombings claimed by a Kurdish militant group kill 44 people near an Istanbul football stadium.
12: UN - Portugal’s Antonio Guterres is sworn in as the ninth UN secretary general.
19: GERMANY - A commandeered lorry smashes into the crowd at a Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 people. The suspect is shot dead by police in Italy four days later.
19: TURKEY/RUSSIA - Russian ambassador Andrei Karlov is killed in Ankara by an off-duty policeman to avenge victims of Aleppo in Syria. The policeman is shot dead as well.
22: SYRIA - Regime forces recapture the entire northern city of Aleppo in their biggest victory against rebels. Since March 2011, the war has killed more than 310,000 people.
23: UN - The Security Council demands Israel halt settlement activities in Palestinian territory, as the US refrains from using its veto.
27: JAPAN/US: Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe make a joint pilgrimage to Pearl Harbor, where a Japanese attack dragged the United States into World War II.
28: ISRAEL/PALESTINIANS/US: US Secretary of State John Kerry forcefully criticises Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank, warning it was putting a two-state solution to the conflict in jeopardy. Israel slams the speech as “biased”.
29: UNITED STATES/RUSSIA - Obama takes retaliatory measures against Moscow for allegedly meddling in the US election.
29: SYRIA/RUSSIA - Putin announces a Syria ceasefire deal and that the warring parties have agreed to sit down for peace talks. The ceasefire comes into force at midnight and holds across most of Syria.