VG

Maoists win elections in Nepal

John Archibald Wheeler, one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century, died of pneumonia at the age of 96. He coined the term “black holes,” worked with Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, and mentored talents such as Richard Feynman and Hugh Everett. In the

The Cassini spacecraft recorded the presence of organic compounds in the plumes of Enceladus geysers. This is a tantalizing indication that life may exist in the oceans beneath the ice of Saturn’s moon. Enceladus, like Europa, is still a target for potential missions searching for

Shlemon Rahho, bishop of Mosul, was found dead in Iraq; he had been kidnapped on February 29.

Raul Reyes, a prominent figure in the FARC guerrilla group, along with other members of the group, including the group’s ideologue, Guillermo Enrique Torres, were killed in an airstrike by the Colombian Air Force. The incident occurred at a time of tension between Colombia, Ecuador

STS122 Atlantis Mission: Assembly of the European Columbus Module

The American satellite USA193 is shot down during reentry by a US Navy missile; the satellite, travelling at Mach 21, is hit in the hydrazine tank by impact

Moscow, Russia. Four days after Kosovo officially declared independence from Serbia, Putin called Georgian President Saakashvili to Moscow and told him: “We have to answer to the West about the Kosovo issue, you know. We’re very sorry, but you are part of the answer. It’s

Fidel Castro, after almost half a century, announces his resignation, passing the position to his brother Raul Castro

Kosovo officially declares independence from Serbia. It is recognized by Western nations, led by the United States and the European Union. In Russia, Putin does not accept this decision passively and considers countermeasures: four days later, he calls Georgian President Saakashvili to Moscow and tells

Pakistani elections: Benazir Bhutto’s party wins after she was assassinated a few weeks earlier.

The American probe Messenger transits Mercury and takes the first photos of the so-called terra incognita of the planet, that is, the part not photographed by the Mariner 10 probe on March 24, 1975.

Benazir Bhutto, the main opposition candidate in the elections scheduled for the following January 8th, is also assassinated in a suicide attack that kills more than 35 people; Bhutto was the daughter of a former Pakistani prime minister, killed after a coup, and she herself

During 2007, 100,000 Iraqis joined the Iraqi Security Forces, the army formed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Auger Observatory scientists demonstrate that extremely high-energy cosmic rays originate from supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies.

England. Global Financial Crisis. The fifth largest bank in England, Northern Rock, is besieged by savers demanding to withdraw their money from their current accounts. With confidence at rock bottom, and various bankers viewing each other with suspicion, the credit machine jams, heading for the

The cover story of Forbes magazine is all about the Finnish cell phone manufacturer Nokia, and asks: “Can anyone catch the cell phone king?” Apple had already released the iPhone, the first smartphone, in June 2007. But evidently, many people, even at the top, hadn’t

Al Gore wins Nobel Peace Prize for his environmental work

Michael Brown, David Lincoln Rabinowitz, and Schwamb discover the dwarf planet G!Kun||’homdima, and its moon G!o’e!Hu’ (no, a cat didn’t run over the keyboard – cit. Adrian Fartade – they are names taken from the mythology of a Namibian population), in the Kuiper Belt, with

Benazir Bhutto, just after returning to Pakistan, was the victim of an attack in which more than 130 people died; she escaped unscathed.

Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrate in Burma in defiance of the regime. The demonstrations are inspired and led by Buddhist monks who enjoy the respect of the military. The protests continue in the following days, and the regime’s repression is not long in coming.

British SAS special forces and Italian Col Moschin free two Italian Military Intelligence (SISMI) agents kidnapped in the Farah area of Afghanistan a few days earlier; nine of the ten kidnappers are killed; the operation was made possible thanks to GPS and the use of

Anti-Syrian Christian MP Antoin Ghanem was killed in a car bombing along with six others in Beirut.

With the help of the radio telescopes of the Very Large Array in New Mexico, Lawrence Rudnick, of the University of Minnesota, discovers a huge empty structure (i.e. poor in both ordinary and dark matter) located between 6 and 10 billion light years away from

Third, and final, flyby of a solar pole by the Ulysses probe. Launched in 1990, it is powered by plutonium radioisotopes, the same series produced in the 1960s by the Americans and used on the Apollo, Voyager, Pioneer, and even the Curiosity Mars rover missions.

The American Mars Phoenix probe lifts off from Cape Canaveral bound for Mars

Michael Brown, David Lincoln Rabinowitz, and Schwamb discover the dwarf planet Gonggong, in the Kuiper Belt, with an estimated diameter of 1,535 km (more than half the diameter of Pluto).

Jonathan Schaeffer of the University of Alberta in Edmonton demonstrates that the game of chess, if played perfectly (i.e. without making mistakes – see Zermelo’s Theorem -), is a no-win situation, i.e. it always ends in a draw.

Chemical Ali’ or Chemical Ali’, responsible for the massacres of Kurdish civilians with toxic gases such as nerve agents, and cousin of Saddam Hussein, is sentenced to death by hanging

Daimler-Benz sells Chrysler to an American investment fund, collecting 7 billion USD, having spent 37 billion nine years earlier to buy it

Afghanistan: Mullah Dadullah, the most feared Taliban leader and organizer of the kidnapping of Italian journalist Mastrogiacomo, and his brother are killed during a joint NATO-Afghan operation in the south of the country.

Center-right candidate Nicolas Sarkozy wins French presidential election against Socialist Ségolène Royal

Four al-Qaeda terrorists were killed in Morocco; three detonated explosive belts they were wearing, and the fourth was shot by police; they were wanted for an attack on an internet café.

Iran seizes 15 British marines patrolling Iraqi waters; Iranians claim they were in Iranian waters; released weeks later

The American Institute of Mathematics, with the help of the Sage supercomputer at Washington University, has managed to complete, after 4 years of work, the mapping of the E8 to explain its symmetry. It is a 248-dimensional object belonging to a Lie group (the “E8”

Iran. Fifteen British Navy sailors were held hostage by Iranian authorities for two weeks.

After Russia, the United States and China, India, through the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), also launches and recovers its own satellite, an essential step towards human flight.

A team of scientists from Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina discovers the presence of stem cells in amniotic fluid.

Romania and Bulgaria officially join the European Union

Space Shuttle Discovery mission to the Int’l Space Station

Death of Augusto Pinochet

Historic visit of Benedict XVI to Türkiye

After 10 years and 240,000 photographs, all contact with the Mars Global Surveyor probe has been lost, but six other probes in orbit or on the surface of the red planet continue to study our neighbor.

Shinya Yamanaka and colleagues from Kyoto University published an article in Cell announcing that they had regressed adult mouse fibroblasts to the stage of embryonic stem cells; the research was confirmed in June 2007 by two American research groups.

Rocco Anthony Petrone died at his home in Palos Verdes Estates, a California seaside resort where he had retired for his studies of the American Civil War, after having been director of launch operations at NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center, and from 1969 director

24 Muslims arrested in London in the final stages of preparations for a massive attack in which at least 10 American airliners were to be blown up in flight with liquid explosives in their hand luggage.

Mumbai, India. Eight simultaneous terrorist attacks on Indian commuter trains leave 209 dead and 700 injured. The attacks were never claimed.

Montenegro votes to secede from Serbia. This secession leaves the Serbian Navy, with 2,900 sailors, eight submarines, and three frigates, without access to the sea.

Record turnout (83%) at the polls for the elections in Italy, narrow majorities in the Chamber (23,000 votes, rewarded with 40 seats by the majority bonus) and in the Senate (overtaking thanks to the vote of Italians abroad) for the center-left

Bernardo Provenzano, the godfather of the mafia, is captured by the police in a farmhouse in the Sicilian countryside.

The European Venus Express probe enters Martian orbit

The organizer of the kidnapping of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, Muhammed Hila Hammad Ubaydi, also known as Abu Ayman, linked to Al-Zarqawi, has been captured in Iraq.

Cassini probe discovers huge geysers of liquid water on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

The WTO (World Trade Organization) establishes Aid for Trade, with which, over ten years, it allocates over 300 billion USD to the economies of developing countries.

For the first time Moore’s Law is disproved: the trend in microprocessors is reversed, that is, now the aim is to reduce the power required and reduce the number of transistors and the frequency

The Franco-American Topex-Poseidon mission ceases operations; it was incredibly fruitful in scientific terms: 13 years and 62,000 orbits.

Iraqis elect their parliament, the success of the election day prompts several diplomatic visits and the beginning of the withdrawal of thousands of coalition soldiers; the Shiite party wins 128 of 275 seats, the Kurds 53, the Sunni parties combined reach 55 and the party

The Hayabusa (Japanese: Falco) probe lands on the asteroid Itokawa, collects a sample, and departs on a return journey to Earth. It gets lost a few days later, but is then found and successfully lands in the Australian desert.

In Australia, 17 members of a group led by Abu Bakr, linked to Al Qaeda, who was planning a “catastrophic” attack in Australia, were arrested in Melbourne and Sydney; several similar attacks were foiled in England and the United States.

The outskirts of Paris are being ravaged by criminal gangs of North African immigrants; around a thousand people have been arrested, and several thousand cars and buses have been set on fire; the protests, sparked by the incident of two immigrants being electrocuted inside an

Twins Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski of the right-wing Catholic Law and Justice party become president (beating another right-wing representative: Donald Tusk) and head of government respectively.

Angela Merkel of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and daughter of a Protestant pastor from the former GDR, becomes the first female German chancellor.

China. Second manned space launch. This time with the Shenzhou-6 spacecraft: it completes six orbits.

Parliamentary elections in Afghanistan are held without major incidents, with massive female voter turnout.

The Japanese Hayabusa spacecraft reaches the Near Earth asteroid Itokawa, the probe is ion-powered.

NASA launches the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It houses the powerful Italian SHARAD radar, capable of measuring subsurface ice deposits.

Abu Zubair is captured in Mosul, a mastermind behind the July 7 attacks in London is captured in Pakistan, a mastermind behind the March 11, 2004 attacks in Madrid is captured in Belgrade, a mastermind behind the July 21 attacks in London is captured in

The Space Transportation System, aka Space Shuttle, with the Discovery shuttle, returns to space and carries into orbit an Italian module, the Raffaello, for the space station

Texan Lance Armstrong wins his seventh Tour de France

A suicide bomber detonated himself in Baghdad next to a Humvee where American soldiers were distributing candy to dozens of children: 32 children died, 1 American soldier was killed, and dozens were injured.

Chess champion Bobby Fischer has been released from a Japanese detention center where he has been held at the request of the U.S. government since 2004. He will then travel to Iceland, where he has been granted full citizenship.

8:51 a.m. Italian time: The first of four explosions rocks London, the massacre being carried out by Al Qaeda, causing approximately 70 deaths and 700 injuries on the subway and a bus. England had won the 2012 Olympic Games the day before, Bob Geldolf’s Live

The 372-kg copper projectile released by the American Deep Impact probe crashes at 10 km/s into comet Tempel 1 to test its consistency and chemical composition through spectrographic analysis of the ejecta. The impact lifts off 5 million kg of water ice and 25 million

Hans Bethe dies

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the use of Brain Pacemakers as a treatment for depression.

Mark Felt, former deputy head of the FBI, at the age of 91, finally reveals that he was the “Deep Throat” of the Watergate scandal, the one who passed the information to Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein: 30 years of theories about

6:30 pm: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is elected Pope, taking the name Benedict XVI.

The funeral of Pope John Paul II is taking place in the Vatican in Rome, with around 4 million people coming to Rome from all over the world for the occasion, 200 heads of state and religious leaders of all faiths, and exceptional security measures.

Kurdish Jalal Talabani is elected president of Iraq; Jafari will instead head the government.

After massive street demonstrations in the capital Bishkek, the pro-American and pro-Western opposition seizes power in Kyrgyzstan and overthrows President Akayev, who takes refuge in Kazakhstan and then in Moscow.