WHAT HAPPENED IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 21. CENTURY
Find out what all happened in the first half of the 21. century

Mikheil Saakashvili is elected President of Georgia following the November 2003 Rose Revolution. (4. January 2004)

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel suffers a second, apparently more serious stroke. His authority is transferred to acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. (4. January 2006)

The 110th United States Congress convenes, electing Nancy Pelosi as the first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history. (4. January 2007)

Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, is officially opened. (4. January 2010)

A gunman kills eight people in a house-to-house rampage in Kawit, the Philippines. (4. January 2013)

Eris, the largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System, is discovered by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz using images originally taken on October 21, 2003, at the Palomar Observatory. (5. January 2005)

American Civil Rights Movement: Edgar Ray Killen is arrested as a suspect in the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers. (6. January 2005)

A train collision in Graniteville, South Carolina, releases about 60 tons of chlorine gas. (6. January 2005)

Israel conducts an assault on Gaza. Operation Cast Lead (6. January 2009)

The St Lawrence Lime is blown over in high winds. (7. January 2005)

Muslim gunmen in Egypt open fire on a crowd of Coptic Christians, killing eight of them and one Muslim bystander. (7. January 2010)

A hot air balloon crashes near Carterton, New Zealand, killing all 11 people on board. (7. January 2012)

President George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act. (8. January 2002)

Turkish Airlines Flight 634 crashes near Diyarbakır Airport, Turkey, killing the entire crew and 70 of 75 passengers. (8. January 2003)

US Airways Express Flight 5481 crashes at Charlotte-Douglas Airport, Charlotte, North Carolina, killing all 21 people on board. (8. January 2003)

The RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger ship ever built, is christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II. (8. January 2004)

The nuclear sub USS San Francisco collides at full speed with an undersea mountain south of Guam. One man is killed, but the sub surfaces and is repaired. (8. January 2005)

A 6.1-magnitude earthquake in northern Costa Rica kills 15 people and injures 32. (8. January 2009)

Gunmen from an offshoot the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda attacked the bus carrying the Togo national football team on its way to the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, killing three. (8. January 2010)

The attempted assassination of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords and subsequent shooting in Casas Adobes, Arizona at a Safeway grocery store, for which Jared Lee Loughner is subsequently arrested, kills six people and wounds 13, including Giffords. (8. January 2011)