2021: A Year in Review

 

Jan 6- Supporters of President Donald Trump storm the US Capitol during the ceremonial certification of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in an effort to overturn the Biden/Harris election result

Jan 8- Twitter bans President Donald Trump

Jan 13- President Trump is impeached for the second timeĀ 

Jan 20- President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are inaugurated at a socially distanced event due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with Senator Bernie Sanders wearing mittens that started an iconic meme

 

Feb 7- Tampa Bay Buccaneers win Super Bowl LV defeating Kansa City Chiefs 31-9

Feb 14- Guinea declares an Ebola epidemic

Feb 15- Major snowstorm from Texas to Maine causes 4 million people to lose power and 29 fatalities

Feb 19- Kim Kardashian files for divorce from Kanye West

Feb 23- Tiger Woods crashes his car and is severely injured

Feb 28- 78th Golden Globes is held after a two-month delay due to COVID-19

 

Mar 7- Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harryā€™s interview with Oprah reveals racism that Meghan Markle faced from the Royal Family and Meghanā€™s suicidal thoughts

Mar 14- 63rd Grammys are hosted by comedian Trevor Noah

Mar 16- Gunman opens fire at three spas in Atlanta, Georgia, killing eight people and injuring one

Mar 19- Fagradalsfjall volcano erupts in Iceland

Mar 21- Supermarket shooting in Boulder, Colorado causes ten fatalities

Mar 23- Cargo ship gets stuck in the Suez Canal for a week

Mar 29- Trial of accused police officer Derek Chauvin begins for the killing of George Floyd

Prince Philip’s funeral procession marks the beginning of Operation Forth Bridge. (Wpa Pool/ Getty Images)

Apr 9- Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh dies at age ninety-nine

Apr 11- 20 year old Daunte Wright shot and killed by police officer Kimberly Potter who claimed to be reaching for her taser and instead drew her gun

Apr 15- Shooting at FedEx facility in Indianapolis, Indiana killing eight employees

Apr 16- Helen McCroy, an actress most known for Shakespeare plays and portraying Narcissa Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, passes away from cancer at age fifty-two

Apr 17- Funeral of Prince Philip

Apr 20- Ex-police officer Derek Chauvin convicted of all charges in shooting of George Floyd

Apr 25- 93rd Academy Awards are held with Nomadland winning Best Picture

 

May 3- Bill and Melinda Gates divorce

May 8- Elon Musk hosts SNL

May 10- Violence escalates in Israel and Palestine

May 15- Ariana Grande gets married to Dalton Gomez

May 19- Israel and Hamas agree to a ceasefire

May 26- First total lunar eclipse in two years

May 28- Discovery of remains of 215 Indigenous children at a residential school in Canada

May 31- 100 year anniversary of the Tulsa massacre. Naomi Osaka pulls out of the French Open for mental health

 

June 11- Man swallowed by a whale in Maine survives

Jun 13- Israeli election replaces Benjamin Netanyahu with Naftali Bennett

Jun 19- President Biden makes Juneteenth a federal holiday

Jun 21- Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib becomes the first openly gay NFL player

Jun 24- Second discovery of the remains of 751 Indigenous people in Canada

Jun 24- Apartments collapse in Surfside, Florida with ninety-nine casualties

 

Jul 8- Global known death toll from COVID-19 passes 4 million

Jul 11- Billionaire Richard Branson flies in his rocket plane in a ā€œspace tourismā€ test

Jul 20- Jeff Bezos goes into space in the first unpiloted, all-civilian crew flight

Jul 23- Olympic Games, delayed a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, begin in Tokyo without spectators

Jul 27- Gymnast Simone Biles withdraws from the Olympics due to mental health and ā€œtwistiesā€

Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings opens as Marvel’s first theatrical-only release of 2021. (Disney)

Aug 4- Rihanna is named the worldā€™s wealthiest female musician by Forbes

Aug 5- Regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, Lionel Messi leaves FC Barcelona

Aug 12- Jamie Spears, Britney Spearsā€™ father, says he will no longer be her conservator, after months of the #FreeBritney movement

Aug 16- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Marvel Studios first Asian-led superhero film, premieres

Aug 24- Paryalympics open in Japan

Aug 26- Following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, two bombs are set off at the Kabul Airport as citizens attempt to evacuate, killing at least 60 people

 

Sep 1- Texas bans abortions after six weeks. The same day a tornado passes through New Jersey, destroying at least 50 homes.

Sep 2- Hurricane Ida causes floods in the US Northeast, prompting New Jersey and New York to declare states of emergency

Sep 15- Elon Muskā€™s SpaceX launches the first all civilian spaceflight

 

Oct 4- Facebook and its apps, including Instagram and Whatsapp, are offline for six hours

Oct 18- American General and the first Black US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, passes away at age eighty-four

Oct 21- On the set of Rust, Alec Baldwin shoots cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and director Joel Souza; Hutchins dies from her injury

Oct 28- Mark Zuckerberg announces that Facebook will change its name to Meta

 

Nov 5- A crowd surge at Travis Scottā€™s performance at Astroworld Festival in Texas kills eight people and hospitalizes thirteen

Nov 9- Nobel Peace Prize winner and activist, Malala Yousafzai marries Asser Malik

Nov 12- ABBAā€™s first new album in 40 years, ā€œVoyageā€, is released

Nov 19- US jury finds Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty of murder for fatally shooting two people and injuring a third person in a racial justice protest

Nov 26- Stephen Sondheim (West Side Story, Sunday in the Park with George) passes away at age ninety-one

Nov 30- 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley kills four people and injures seven at Oxford High School, Michigan

 

Dec 5- US Senator from Kansas 1969-1996 and Republican Presidential candidate in 1996, Bob Dole, passes away at age ninety-eight

Dec 10- Tornadoes ravage Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky, leaving at least 70 dead

Dec 13- Elon Musk named TIMEā€™s Person of the Year

Dec 24-26- As holiday travel peaks, more than 6,000 flights are cancelled due to surges in Omicron, a COVID-19 variant

Dec 31- Comic actress Betty White (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Golden Girls) passes away at age ninety-nine. Some schools delay their January return or go virtual as the Omicron variant spreads across the US