2011

2011 (MMXI) is the current year, which is a common year that started on a Saturday. In the Gregorian calendar, it is the 2011th year of the Common Era (CE) and the Anno Domini (AD) designation; the 11th year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century; and the 2nd of the 2010s decade.

The United Nations has designated 2011 the International Year of Forests and the International Year of Chemistry.

January

 * January 1 – Estonia officially adopts the Euro currency and becomes the seventeenth Eurozone country.
 * January 9–15 – Southern Sudan holds referendum on independence. The Sudanese electorate votes in favour of independence, paving the way for the creation of the new state in July.
 * January 11 – Flooding and mudslides in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro kills 903.
 * January 14 – Arab Spring: The Tunisian government falls after a month of increasingly violent protests; President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali flees to Saudi Arabia after 23 years in power.
 * January 24 – 37 people are killed and more than 180 others wounded in a bombing at Domodedovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia.

February

 * February 11 – Arab Spring: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigns after widespread protests calling for his departure, leaving control of Egypt in the hands of the military until a general election can be held.
 * February 22 - March 14 – Uncertainty over Libyan oil output causes crude oil prices to rise 20% over a two-week period following the Arab Spring, causing the 2011 energy crisis.

March

 * March 11 – A 9.1-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the east of Japan, killing 15,799 and leaving another 4,041 missing. Tsunami warnings are issued in 50 countries and territories. Emergencies are declared at four nuclear power plants affected by the quake.
 * March 15 – Arab Spring: Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, King of Bahrain declares a three-month state of emergency as troops from the Gulf Co-operation Council are sent to quell the civil unrest.
 * March 17 – Arab Spring and Libyan civil war: The United Nations Security Council votes 10-0 to create a no-fly zone over Libya in response to allegations of government aggression against civilians.
 * March 19 – Arab Spring and Libyan civil war: In light of continuing attacks on Libyan rebels by forces in support of leader Muammar Gaddafi, military intervention authorized under UNSCR 1973 begins as French fighter jets make reconnaissance flights over Libya.

April

 * April 11 – Former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo is arrested in his home in Abidjan by supporters of elected President Alassane Ouattara with support from French forces thereby ending the 2010–2011 Ivorian crisis and civil war.
 * April 29 – An estimated two billion people watch the wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey in London.

May

 * May 1 – U.S. President Barack Obama announces that Osama bin Laden, the founder and leader of the militant group Al-Qaeda, has been killed during an American military operation in Pakistan.
 * May 16 – The European Union agree to €78 billion rescue deal for Portugal. The bailout loan will be equally split between the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism, the European Financial Stability Facility, and the International Monetary Fund.
 * May 26 – Former Bosnian Serb Army commander Ratko Mladić, wanted for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, is arrested in Serbia.

June

 * June 4 – Chile's Puyehue volcano erupts, causing air traffic cancellations across South America, New Zealand, Australia and forcing over 3,000 people to evacuate.
 * June 5 – Arab Spring: Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh travels to Saudi Arabia for treatment of an injury sustained during an attack on the presidential palace. Protesters celebrate his transfer of power to his Vice-President Abd al-Rab Mansur al-Hadi.
 * June 12 – Arab Spring: Thousands of Syrians flee to Turkey as Syrian troops lay siege to Jisr ash-Shugur.

July

 * July 7 – The world's first artificial organ transplant is achieved, using an artificial windpipe coated with stem cells.
 * July 9 – South Sudan secedes from Sudan, per the result of the independence referendum held in January.
 * July 20
 * Goran Hadžić is detained in Serbia, becoming the last of 161 people indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
 * The United Nations declares a famine in southern Somalia, the first in over thirty years.
 * July 21 – Space Shuttle Atlantis lands successfully at Kennedy Space Center after completing STS-135, concluding NASA's space shuttle program.
 * July 22 – 76 people are killed in twin terrorist attacks in Norway after a bombing in the Regjeringskvartalet (the government center in Oslo) and a shooting at a political youth camp in the island of Utøya.
 * July 31 - September 24 – 2011 Syrian uprising: Because of the uncertaintities associated with a clamp-down of the free press, there is believed to be at least 121 people killed in a Syrian Army tank raid on the town of Hama and over 150 people are reportedly killed across the country.  The total dead throughout Syria may never be known, but an estimate as of September 24 is 3,000.

August

 * August 5
 * NASA announces that its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured photographic evidence of possible liquid water on Mars during warm seasons.
 * Juno, the first solar-powered spacecraft on a mission to Jupiter, is launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
 * August 20–28 – Arab Spring and the Libyan civil war: In the Battle of Tripoli, Libyan rebels took control the nation's capital effectively overthrowing the government of Muammar Gaddafi.

September

 * September 5 – India and Bangladesh sign a pact to end their 40-year border demarcation dispute.
 * September 10 – Zanzibar ferry sinking: The MV Spice Islander I carrying at least 800 people sank off the coast of Zanzibar. 240 people have been confirmed dead.
 * September 12 – Approximately 100 Kenyans are dead after a petrol pipeline explosion in Nairobi, Kenya.
 * September 19 – After 361 dead, the United Nations launches a $357 million appeal for victims of the 2011 Sindh floods in Pakistan.

January

 * January 2
 * Anne Francis, American actress (b. 1930)
 * Pete Postlethwaite, British actor (b. 1946)
 * Richard Winters, American paratrooper (b. 1918)
 * January 4
 * Prince Ali-Reza Pahlavi of Iran (b. 1966)
 * Gerry Rafferty, Scottish musician (b. 1947)
 * January 15
 * Nat Lofthouse, English footballer (b. 1925)
 * Susannah York, British actress (b. 1939)
 * January 18 – Sargent Shriver, American politician and diplomat (b. 1915)
 * January 21 – Dennis Oppenheim, American artist (b. 1938)
 * January 24 – Bernd Eichinger, German film producer and director (b. 1949)
 * January 29 – Milton Babbitt, American composer (b. 1916)
 * January 30 – John Barry, British film score composer (b. 1933)

February

 * February 3 – Maria Schneider, French actress (b. 1952)
 * February 5 – Brian Jacques, British author (b. 1939)
 * February 6
 * Josefa Iloilo, 3rd President of Fiji (b. 1920)
 * Gary Moore, Irish musician (b. 1952)
 * February 8 – Cesare Rubini, Italian basketball player and coach (b. 1923)
 * February 14 – George Shearing, British-American jazz pianist (b. 1919)
 * February 27 – Necmettin Erbakan, 25th Prime Minister of Turkey (b. 1926)
 * February 28 – Jane Russell, American actress (b. 1921)

March

 * March 4
 * Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, 30th Prime Minister of Nepal (b. 1924)
 * Simon van der Meer, Dutch physicist (b. 1925)
 * March 5 – Alberto Granado, Cuban writer and scientist (b. 1922)
 * March 6 – Ján Popluhár, Slovak footballer (b. 1935)
 * March 15 – Nate Dogg, American rapper (b. 1969)
 * March 17 – Michael Gough, British actor (b. 1916)
 * March 18 – Warren Christopher, American diplomat (b. 1925)
 * March 21 – Nikolai Andrianov, Soviet-Russian gymnast (b. 1952)
 * March 23 – Elizabeth Taylor, British-American actress (b. 1932)
 * March 26
 * Paul Baran, Polish-American computer engineer (b. 1926)
 * Geraldine Ferraro, American politician (b. 1935)
 * Diana Wynne Jones, British writer (b. 1934)
 * March 27 – Farley Granger, American actor (b. 1925)
 * March 29 – José Alencar, Brazilian politician (b. 1931)

April

 * April 5
 * Baruch Samuel Blumberg, American physician (b. 1925)
 * Ange-Félix Patassé, 5th President of the Central African Republic (b. 1937)
 * April 9 – Sidney Lumet, American film director (b. 1924)
 * April 14 – William Lipscomb, American chemist (b. 1919)
 * April 19 – Grete Waitz, Norwegian athlete (b. 1953)


 * April 24 – Sathya Sai Baba, Indian spiritual leader (b. 1926)
 * April 30 – Ernesto Sabato, Argentine writer (b. 1911)

May

 * May 2 – Osama bin Laden, Saudi Arabian-born terrorist (b. 1957)
 * May 3 – Jackie Cooper, American actor (b. 1922)
 * May 7
 * Seve Ballesteros, Spanish golfer (b. 1957)
 * Willard Boyle, Canadian physicist (b. 1924)
 * May 9 – Lidia Gueiler Tejada, 67th President of Bolivia (b. 1921)
 * May 16 – Samuel Wanjiru, Kenyan athlete (b. 1986)
 * May 19 – Garret FitzGerald, 7th Taoiseach of Ireland (b. 1926)
 * May 20 – Randy Savage, American professional wrestler (b. 1952)
 * May 27
 * Jeff Conaway, American actor (b. 1950)
 * Gil Scott-Heron, American poet and musician (b. 1949)
 * May 29
 * Sergei Bagapsh, Georgian-born politician (b. 1949)
 * Ferenc Mádl, 2nd President of Hungary (b. 1931)
 * May 30 – Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, American physicist (b. 1921)
 * May 31 – Pauline Betz, American tennis player (b. 1919)

June

 * June 3 – Jack Kevorkian, American euthanasia advocate (b. 1928)
 * June 4 – Lawrence Eagleburger, American diplomat (b. 1930)
 * June 7 – Jorge Semprún, Spanish writer and politician (b. 1923)
 * June 9 – M.F. Hussain, Indian painter (b. 1915)
 * June 18
 * Frederick Chiluba, 2nd President of Zambia (b. 1943)
 * Clarence Clemons, American musician and actor (b. 1942)


 * June 23 – Peter Falk, American actor (b. 1927)

July

 * July 2 – Itamar Franco, 37th President of Brazil (b. 1930)
 * July 4 – Otto von Habsburg, Austro-Hungarian noble and politician (b. 1912)
 * July 5 – Cy Twombly, American painter (b. 1928)
 * July 8 – Betty Ford, former First Lady of the United States (b. 1918)
 * July 10 – Roland Petit, French choreographer and dancer (b. 1924)
 * July 12 – Tom Gehrels, American astronomer (b. 1925)
 * July 17 – Juan Maria Bordaberry, 36th President of Uruguay (b. 1928)
 * July 20 – Lucian Freud, German-born British painter (b. 1922)
 * July 23
 * Robert Ettinger, American academic (b. 1918)
 * Nguyen Cao Ky, 8th Prime Minister of the Republic of Vietnam (b. 1930)
 * Amy Winehouse, British singer (b. 1983)
 * July 25 – Mihalis Kakogiannis, Cypriot filmmaker (b. 1922)
 * July 28 – Abdul Fatah Younis, Libyan army commander (b. 1944)
 * July 30 – Mario Echandi Jiménez, 47th President of Costa Rica (b. 1915)

August

 * August 2 – Baruj Benacerraf, Venezuelan-born American Nobel immunologist (b. 1920)
 * August 3 – Bubba Smith, American football player and actor (b. 1945)
 * August 7 – Harri Holkeri, 57th Finnish Prime Minister (b. 1937)
 * August 14 – Shammi Kapoor, Indian film actor and director (b. 1931)
 * August 16 – Andrej Bajuk, 3rd Prime Minister of Republic of Slovenia (b. 1943)
 * August 17 – Nancy Wake, World War II veteran with the French Resistance (b. 1912)
 * August 19 – Raúl Ruiz, Chilean film director (b. 1941)

September

 * September 7
 * Pavol Demitra, Slovakian hockey player (b. 1974)
 * Stefan Liv, Polish-born Swedish hockey player (b. 1980)
 * Ruslan Salei, Belarusian hockey player (b. 1974)
 * Kārlis Skrastiņš, Latvian hockey player (b. 1974)
 * September 10 – Cliff Robertson, American actor (b. 1923)
 * September 13 – Richard Hamilton, British painter and collage artist (b. 1922)
 * September 14 – Rudolf Mössbauer, German Nobel physicist (b. 1929)
 * September 19 – George Cadle Price, 1st Prime Minister of Belize (b. 1919)
 * September 20 – Burhanuddin Rabbani, President of Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996 (b. 1940)
 * September 25 – Wangari Maathai, Kenyan environmental and political activist (b. 1940)
 * September 27 – Imre Makovecz, Hungarian architect (b. 1935)
 * September 30
 * Anwar al-Awlaki, American-born terrorist and Islamist militant (b. 1971)
 * Ralph M. Steinman, Canadian Nobel immunologist and cell biologist (b. 1943)

October

 * October 5 – Steve Jobs, American computer engineer (b. 1955)

Nobel Prizes

 * Chemistry – Dan Shechtman
 * Economics – to be announced
 * Literature – to be announced
 * Peace – to be announced
 * Physics – Saul Perlmutter, Adam G. Riess, and Brian P. Schmidt
 * Physiology or Medicine – Bruce A. Beutler, Jules A. Hoffmann, and Ralph M. Steinman

Major religious holidays

 * January 7 (6 in Armenia) – Orthodox Christmas
 * February 1 – Imbolc, a Cross-quarter day
 * March 8 – Shrove Tuesday / Mardi Gras, end of Mardi Gras / Carnival season
 * March 9 – Ash Wednesday (first day of Lent)
 * March 20 – Holi
 * March 21 – (Northern hemisphere) Vernal equinox, also known as Ostara & Persian New Year
 * April 18 – Passover begins at sundown
 * April 24 – Easter (Western and Orthodox)
 * May 1 – Beltane, a Cross-quarter day
 * June 7 – Shavuot begins
 * August 1
 * Ramadan begins (Islam)
 * Lammas, a Cross-quarter day
 * August 31 – Eid al-Fitr
 * September 1 – Ganesh Chaturthi
 * September 11 – Anant Chaturdashi
 * September 23 – (Northern hemisphere) Autumnal equinox, also known as Mabon
 * September 28 – Rosh Hashana begins at sundown
 * October 7 – Yom Kippur begins at sundown
 * October 26 – Diwali, a religious holiday in Hinduism
 * November 6 – Eid al-Adha
 * November 26 – Islamic New Year
 * December 20 – Hanukkah
 * December 25 – Christmas