2005 - What happened in 2005 ?

January 2005

Thursday 06:

Mississippi Civil Rights Workers Murders: Edgar Ray Killen is arrested as a suspect for the 1964 murders of three Civil Rights workers.

Wednesday 12:

Deep Impact (space mission) launches from Cape Canaveral by a Delta 2 rocket.

Sunday 16:

Adriana Iliescu gives birth at age 66 and becomes the oldest woman in the world to do so.

Tuesday 18:

A U.N. World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan begins

Sunday 23:

Viktor Yushchenko sworn in as the third President of Ukraine in Kiev, Ukraine.

February 2005

Thursday 10:

North Korea and weapons of mass destruction: North Korea suspends participation in multi-nation talks to discuss its arms program and officially admits to developing nuclear weapons.

Saturday 12:

Former Vermont governor and presidential candidate Howard Dean becomes chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Friday 18:

The United Kingdom law banning fox hunting, hare coursing and other sports which kill wild mammals is enforced from this date.

Wednesday 23:

Slovakia Summit 2005 begins, marking the first occasion when a sitting American President visits Slovakia; Bush and Putin are in attendance.

Sunday 27:

pay price capping on the Transport for London Oyster card was introduced.

March 2005

Thursday 03:

The freighter M/V Karen Danielsen, crashes into part of the Great Belt Bridge of Denmark, 800 m from Funen. All traffic across the bridge stops, effectively separating Denmark in two.

Thursday 10:

In Edmonton, Alberta, the largest memorial (of its kind) in Canadian history was held for four RCMP constables who were gunned down March 3, 2005.

Friday 11:

Judge Rowland Barnes, court reporter Julie Brandau and deputy Hoyt Teasley are all murdered in the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia; the main suspect being Brian Nichols who surrendered to police on the 12th.

Saturday 12:

Tung Chee Hwa, the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong, steps down from his post after his resignation is approved by the Chinese central government.

Monday 28:

The 2005 Sumatran earthquake rocks Indonesia, and at magnitude 8.7 is the second strongest earthquake since 1965.

April 2005

Saturday 09:

HRH Charles, Prince of Wales weds Camilla Parker Bowles

Friday 22:

Mordechai Vanunu installed as Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow.

Sunday 24:

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.

Thursday 28:

The Patent Law Treaty goes into effect.

Friday 29:

2005 Apple releases Mac OS X v10.4

May 2005

Saturday 14:

Nintendo opens up its first retail store, Nintendo World, in Rockefeller Center in New York City. They celebrate the grand opening with a block party in Rockefeller Plaza.

Monday 16:

Kuwait permits women's suffrage in a 35-23 National Assembly vote.

Wednesday 25:

Liverpool win the UEFA Champions League after beating AC Milan in the final.

Sunday 29:

France, one of the founders of a united Europe, resoundingly rejects the European Constitution, throwing the idea of a European Union into question and leaving the continent in a state of anxiety and uncertainty (see French referendum on the European Constitution)

Tuesday 31:

W. Mark Felt admits in the magazine Vanity Fair published today that he is the anonymous source Deep Throat in the Watergate scandal. The Washington Post would confirm this on June 1st. Felt was at the time (1972) the number two man at the FBI.

June 2005

Wednesday 01:

The Dutch referendum on the European Constitution results in its rejection.

Thursday 02:

Sun Microsystems announces it will purchase Storage Technology Corporation for US$4.1 billion.

Saturday 04:

First day of Einstein Symposium in Alexandria, Egypt.

Saturday 11:

G8 finance ministers agree to cancel the debt owed by 18 of the poorest countries.

Thursday 30:

Spain legalizes same-sex marriage.

July 2005

Wednesday 13:

Three trains collide in the Ghotki rail crash in Ghotki, Pakistan, killing over 150 people.

Saturday 16:

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, the sixth in J.K. Rowling's hugely popular Harry Potter series, is published in English-speaking countries.

Sunday 24:

Lance Armstrong wins his seventh Tour de France.

Thursday 28:

Larry Brown is introduced as the head coach of the New York Knicks NBA franchise, at a press conference in Madison Square Garden.

Friday 29:

Astonomers discover 10th planet.

August 2005

Tuesday 02:

Air France Flight 358 skids off the runway at Toronto Pearson International Airport outside Toronto, Canada, destroying the plane but resulting in no loss of life.

Sunday 07:

Peter Jennings dies of lung cancer at age 67. The United States and his birth country of Canada goes into mourning the day after.

Wednesday 17:

President Sellapan Ramanathan is declared President of Singapore for a second term at noon.

Friday 26:

Fiji's High Court rules that the island's sodomy law is unconstitutional.

Tuesday 30:

The 17th Street Canal in New Orleans is breached by Hurricane Katrina, leading to massive flooding and destruction.

September 2005

Friday 02:

The Kingdom of Lovely is declared in Leicester Square, London, by King Danny I of Lovely.

Monday 12:

Blackouts across Los Angeles, California lasting throughout the afternoon and into the evening.

Friday 23:

FBI killing of Filiberto Ojeda on Plan Bonito Hormigueros, Puerto Rico.

Saturday 24:

Hurricane Rita makes landfall in the United States, devastating Beaumont, Texas and Houston, Texas.

Monday 26:

The shock elimination of favoured to win, Teresa Bergman, on New Zealand Idol.

October 2005

Sunday 09:

China's State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping officially announced the new accurate height of Everest is 8848.43 m.

Monday 10:

Channel 4's new documentary channel More4 starts broadcasting on ntl, Sky Digital and Freeview in the UK.

Tuesday 11:

Sevendust releases its fifth album, Next.

Thursday 13:

The second Chinese human spaceflight Shenzhou 6 is scheduled to carry two astronauts for five days in orbit.

Tuesday 18:

The Nameless Novel aka Book The Twelfth of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events is released to the public.

November 2005

Tuesday 01:

2005 - released on dvd.

Tuesday 15:

DVD release of huge-hit television serial Friends.The One with All Ten Seasons

Tuesday 22:

Microsoft's Xbox 360 gaming console is due to debut in North America.

December 2005

Friday 02:

Microsoft releases its Xbox 360 video game console in Europe.

Saturday 10:

Microsoft releases its Xbox 360 video game console in Japan.