2020 significant event COVID-19 pandemic
Events
January
January 1
Croatia begins its term in the presidency of the European Union.
Flash floods struck Jakarta, Indonesia, killing 66 people in a worst flooding in over a decade.
January 2 – The Royal Australian Air Force and Navy are deployed to New South Wales and Victoria to assist mass evacuation efforts amidst the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season.
January 3 –  A United States drone strike at Baghdad International Airport kills ten people, including the intended target, Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, and Iraqi paramilitary leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
January 5
Second Libyan Civil War: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announces the deployment of Turkish troops to Libya on behalf of the United Nations-backed Government of National Accord.
2019–20 Croatian presidential election: The second round of voting is held and Zoran Milanović of the Social Democratic Party of Croatia defeats incumbent president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović.
January 8
Iran launches ballistic missiles at two Iraqi military bases hosting U.S. soldiers, injuring multiple personnel.
Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 is shot down by Iranian forces shortly after takeoff from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport, killing all 176 people on board.
January 9
A rare, circumbinary planet called TOI 1338-b is discovered.
Islamic State in the Greater Sahara militants assault a Nigerien military base in Chinagodrar, killing at least 89 Nigerien soldiers.
January 10 – Haitham bin Tariq succeeds Qaboos bin Said as the Sultan of Oman.
January 11 – Presidential and legislative elections are held in Taiwan. Incumbent president Tsai Ing-wen is reelected and the Democratic Progressive Party wins a majority of 67 out of 113 seats in the Legislative Yuan.
January 12 – The Taal Volcano in the Philippines has its first major eruption since 1977.
January 16 – The first impeachment trial of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, begins in the U.S. Senate. He is acquitted on February 5.
January 18 – Yemeni Civil War: 111 Yemeni soldiers and 5 civilians are killed in a drone and missile attack on a military camp near Maʼrib.
January 20 – COVID-19 pandemic: Chinese authorities publicly confirm human-to-human transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.
January 22 – The Hellenic Parliament elects Katerina Sakellaropoulou as president of Greece.
January 23 – COVID-19 pandemic: The Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the initial COVID-19 outbreak, is quarantined with all scheduled public transport services and intercity flights halted.
January 26 – The 2020 Peruvian parliamentary election is held to elect all 130 members of the Congress of the Republic of Peru.
January 28 – A magnitude 7.7 earthquake strikes between the islands of Cuba and Jamaica, resulting in some damage. It was the largest earthquake in the Caribbean since 1946.
January 29 – U.S. president Donald Trump signs the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, a North American trade agreement set to replace NAFTA.
January 30 – COVID-19 pandemic: The World Health Organization (WHO) declares the outbreak of the disease as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the sixth time that this measure has been invoked since 2009.
January 31 – The United Kingdom and Gibraltar formally withdraw from the European Union, beginning an 11-month transition period.February
February 2 – A rare Universal Palindrome Date (02/02/2020) occurs in the Gregorian calendar. Such events usually only transpire around once every 1000 years, with the last such event occurring in 1111.
February 8 – The 2020 Irish general election is held to elect all 160 members of the 33rd Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas.
February 11 – COVID-19 pandemic: The World Health Organization (WHO) names the disease COVID-19.
February 13 – NASA publishes a detailed study of Arrokoth, the most distant body ever explored by a spacecraft.
February 19 – Hanau shootings: Eleven people are killed and five injured in a terrorist shooting spree by a far-right extremist targeting shisha bars in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Germany.
February 24 – The Pakatan Harapan coalition government of Malaysia collapses and is replaced by the Perikatan Nasional coalition. Muhyiddin Yassin becomes the eighth Prime Minister of Malaysia on 1 March.
February 27 – 2020 stock market crash: Triggered by fears of the spreading of COVID-19, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) plunges by 1,190.95 points, or 4.4%, to close at 25,766.64, its largest one-day point decline at the time. This follows several days of large falls, marking the worst week for the index since 2008.
February 28 – Syrian Civil War: NATO expresses solidarity with Turkey after 34 Turkish soldiers were killed in an airstrike by pro-Syrian government forces.
February 29
A conditional peace agreement is signed between the United States and the Taliban. The U.S. begins gradually withdrawing combat troops from Afghanistan on March 10.
Barquisimeto shooting: During a demonstration, pro-government colectivos shoot at disputed President and Speaker of the National Assembly Juan Guaidó and his supporters in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, leaving five injured.May
May 1
COVID-19 pandemic: The total number of recovered COVID-19 patients reaches 1 million worldwide, according to data from The Johns Hopkins University.
Guanare prison riot: A riot and attempted escape attempt leaves 47 dead and 75 injured in the Centro Penitenciario de los Llanos in Guanare, Venezuela.
May 2 – The United Nations publishes a report stating that Russia's indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Syria constitutes a war crime.
May 3–4 – Venezuelan dissidents and a North American-based private military company, Silvercorp USA, unsuccessfully attempt to infiltrate Venezuela and forcibly remove President Nicolás Maduro from office.
May 4 – A team of British and Kenyan scientists announce the discovery of Microsporidia MB, a parasitic microbe in the Microsporidia fungi group that blocks mosquitos from carrying malaria, potentially paving the way for the control of malaria.
May 5 – COVID-19 pandemic: The U.K. death toll from COVID-19 becomes the highest in Europe at 32,313 after exceeding the death toll of 29,029 in Italy.
May 6
Astronomers announce the discovery of the first black hole located in a star system visible to the naked eye.
COVID-19 pandemic: New evidence indicates that an Algerian-born French fishmonger, who had not traveled to China and did not have contact with any Chinese nationals, was treated for pneumonia from an unknown source on December 27, 2019, now identified as COVID-19.
May 9 – Several Chinese and Indian soldiers are injured in a cross-border clash at the Nathu La crossing. About 150 troops participated in the face-off, which involved fistfights and stone-throwing.
May 10
The Iranian Navy frigate Jamaran accidentally strikes the Iranian support vessel Konarak with a missile, killing nineteen sailors. This is the first friendly fire incident since February 2019, when an Indian Mil Mi-17 helicopter was mistakenly shot down by Indian air defense forces.
COVID-19 pandemic: Wuhan reports its first coronavirus cases in more than a month. An 89-year-old man is confirmed positive, but his wife and several members of the community are recorded as asymptomatic cases.
May 11 – The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology publishes the result of radiocarbon and DNA analysis from the fossils that has been found in the Bacho Kiro cave, Bulgaria. The result, showing that the fossils belong to Homo sapiens instead of Neanderthal, indicates that modern humans may have arrived in Europe thousands of years earlier than previously thought.
May 12 – Gunmen storm a maternity hospital and kill 24 people, including two newborn babies, in Dashte Barchi, a majority-Shia neighborhood of Kabul, Afghanistan. In a separate incident in Kuz Kunar, 32 people are killed at a funeral by a suicide bomber.
May 14
COVID-19 pandemic:
The global death toll from COVID-19 exceeds 300,000.
The UN warns of a global mental health crisis caused by isolation, fear, uncertainty and economic turmoil.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says the military alliance is "ready to support" the UN-recognized Government of National Accord while Greece, a member state of NATO, strongly criticizes Stoltenberg's remarks, saying his recognition of the "Muslim Brotherhood government" does not reflect the positions of the military alliance.
May 15 – Researchers announce a 2.5 cm millipede fossil belonging to the Kampecaris genus, discovered on the island of Kerrera in the Scottish Inner Hebrides, is the world's oldest-known land animal, which lived 425 million years ago in the Silurian period.
May 16 – Félicien Kabuga, a Rwandan businessman responsible for supporting the Rwandan genocide, is arrested in Asnières-sur-Seine, France, after 26 years as a fugitive.
May 18
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs announces that nearly 1 million people are affected and at least 24 people have died in flash floods that have hit Beledweyne and Jowhar, Somalia.
In a historic move, the World Health Organization holds its annual World Health Assembly using video conferencing instead of in-person meetings.
May 19 – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announces the termination of all agreements, including security ones, with Israel and the United States in response to Israel's plans to annex the Jordan Valley.
May 21
Cyclone Amphan makes landfall in eastern India and Bangladesh, killing over 100 people and forcing the evacuation of more than 4 million others. It causes over US$13 billion in damage, making it the costliest cyclone ever recorded in the North Indian Ocean, shattering the record previously held by Nargis.
The U.S. announces it will withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty within six months, alleging continuous violations by Russia.
COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 5 million worldwide, with 106,000 new cases recorded over the past 24 hours, the highest single-day figure so far.
May 22
Flight PK8303, a Pakistan International Airlines passenger aircraft, crashes in a residential area near Karachi, in Pakistan, killing 97 of the 99 total people on board and injuring dozens on the ground.
COVID-19 pandemic: Brazil overtakes Russia to become the country with the second highest number of COVID-19 cases, with over 330,000 reported. President Jair Bolsonaro continues to dismiss the threat of the virus.
May 23 – COVID-19 pandemic: China reports no new cases for the first time since the pandemic began, according to the National Health Commission.
May 24
Mining corporation Rio Tinto admits to blowing up the 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge caves in the Pilbara area of Western Australia. The firm later issues an apology to the two Aboriginal peoples who are the traditional owners of the site.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi pardons 3,157 prisoners to celebrate Eid al-Fitr and, two days later, President of Zambia Edgar Lungu pardons nearly 3,000 inmates to commemorate Africa Freedom Day.
May 25 – The 2020 Surinamese general election is held to elect all 51 members of the National Assembly of Suriname.
May 26
Protests caused by the murder of George Floyd break out across hundreds of cities in the U.S. and around the world. These are followed by further protests and rallies on June 6 against racism and police brutality around the world.
Costa Rica becomes the first Central American country to legalise same-sex marriage.
LATAM Airlines, the largest air carrier in Latin America, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
May 27
The Chinese National People's Congress votes in favour of national security legislation that criminalizes "secession", "subversion", "terrorism" and foreign interference in Hong Kong; the legislation grants sweeping powers to the Chinese central government to suppress the Hong Kong democracy movement, including banning activist groups and curtailing civil liberties. The U.S. government responds by declaring Hong Kong is "no longer autonomous" under the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act.
COVID-19 pandemic: The U.S. death toll passes 100,000 – more Americans than were killed in the Vietnam War and Korean War combined, and approaching that of the First World War, where 116,000 Americans died in combat. The total number of cases continues to rise, although the rate is slowing.
May 30 – The first crewed flight of the SpaceX Dragon 2 (initially scheduled for May 27 but delayed due to weather) is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first crewed spacecraft to take off from U.S. soil since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011.July
July 1 – Russian voters back a constitutional amendment that, among other things, enables Vladimir Putin to seek two further six-year terms when his current term ends in 2024, potentially allowing him to remain in power until 2036.
July 5
The 2020 Croatian parliamentary election is held to elect all 151 members of the Croatian Parliament.
2020 Dominican Republic general election: Modern Revolutionary Party candidate Luis Abinader is elected president of the Dominican Republic, the Modern Revolutionary Party wins 17 out of 32 seats in the Senate and 86 out of 190 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.
July 7
Protests begin throughout Bulgaria with the goal of removing Borisov's cabinet and Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev from office.
COVID-19 pandemic: Thousands of people rally outside the House of the National Assembly of Serbia in Belgrade in response to stricter lockdown measures proposed by President Aleksandar Vučić following an increase of cases in the city.
July 8 – At least 180 bodies are found in mass graves in Djibo, Burkina Faso, where soldiers are fighting jihadists. It is suspected that government forces were involved in mass extrajudicial executions.
July 10
The ECB accepts Bulgaria and Croatia into ERM II, a mandatory stage for countries wishing to adopt the euro. This is the currency union's first major expansion in half a decade.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan orders the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul to be reverted to a mosque following a supreme court annulment of a 1934 presidential decree that made it into a museum.
The 2020 Singaporean general election is held to elect all 93 members of the Parliament of Singapore and the People's Action Party, led by prime minister Lee Hsien Loong wins 83 out of 93 seats.
July 12 – The second round of voting for the 2020 Polish presidential election is held and incumbent president Andrzej Duda is reelected.
July 15 – The Twitter accounts of prominent political figures, CEOs, and celebrities are hacked to promote a bitcoin scam.
July 19 – Flooding of the Brahmaputra River kills 189 and leaves 4 million homeless in India and Nepal.
July 21 – COVID-19 pandemic: European leaders agree to create a €750 billion (US$858 billion) recovery fund to rebuild EU economies impacted by the pandemic.
July 22 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 15 million worldwide.
July 25 – COVID-19 pandemic: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un convenes an emergency meeting, declares a state of emergency, and orders the lockdown of Kaesong after a person suspected of having COVID-19 returned from South Korea. If confirmed, it would be the first case to be officially acknowledged by North Korea.
28 July – Former Prime Minister of Malaysia Najib Razak is found guilty of all seven charges in the first of five trials on the 1MDB scandal, being jailed 12 years and fined RM210 million as a result.
July 30 – NASA successfully launches its Mars 2020 rover mission to search for signs of ancient life and collect samples for return to Earth. The mission includes technology demonstrations to prepare for future human missions.August
August 1 – The Barakah nuclear power plant in the UAE becomes operational following delays since 2017. It is the first commercial nuclear power station in the Arab world.
August 2 – COVID-19 pandemic: In rare talks, Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif hold a video call to discuss various regional issues, including combating COVID-19 in their respective countries.
August 4 – An explosion caused by unsafely stored ammonium nitrate kills at least 218 people, injures thousands, and severely damages the port in Beirut, Lebanon. Damage is estimated at $10–15 billion, and an estimated 300,000 people are left homeless. The following day, the Lebanese government declares a two-week state of emergency.
August 5 – U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar travels to Taiwan, the highest U.S. official visit to the country in 40 years. The PRC condemns the visit.
August 7 – Air India Express Flight 1344 crashes after overrunning the runway at Calicut International Airport in Kerala, India, killing 19 of the 191 people on board.
August 9 – A presidential election in Belarus which led to incumbent Alexander Lukashenko's reelection sparks protests throughout the country after major opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya rejected the results. Seven days later, the largest political march in Belarusian history takes place, with an estimated 300,000 people in Minsk and 200,000 in other Belarusian cities and towns.
August 10
Midwest Derecho: Costliest and one of the strongest thunderstorms in U.S. history.
COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 20 million worldwide.
The 2020 Trinidad and Tobago general election is held to elect all 41 members of the House of Representatives of Trinidad and Tobago, the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago and the People's National Movement party, led by prime minister Keith Rowley won 22 out of 41 seats.
August 11 – COVID-19 pandemic: Russian President Vladimir Putin announces that Russia has approved the world's first COVID-19 vaccine.
August 13 – Israel and the UAE agree to normalise relations, marking the third Israel–Arab peace deal.
August 15 – The Japanese bulk carrier Wakashio, which stranded on a reef in Mauritius last month, breaks in half. Approximately 1,000 tonnes of oil are spilled into the ocean, becoming the largest environmental disaster in the history of Mauritius.
August 18 – A mutiny in a military base by soldiers of the Malian Armed Forces develops into a coup d'état. President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta and Prime Minister Boubou Cissé, among other senior governmental and military officers, are arrested. The next day, Keïta announces his resignation on state television.
August 19 – The Special Tribunal for Lebanon convicts in absentia Salim Ayyash, a senior member of Hezbollah, for the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri.
August 22 – COVID-19 pandemic: The worldwide death toll from COVID-19 exceeds 800,000.
August 23 – Bayern Munich wins the 2019–20 UEFA Champions League by beating Paris Saint-Germain in the final 1–0.
August 25 – Africa is declared free of wild polio, the second virus to be eradicated from the continent since smallpox 40 years previously.
August 26 – Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos becomes the first person in history to have a net worth exceeding US$200 billion, according to Forbes.
August 27 – Hurricane Laura makes landfall in Lake Charles, Louisiana with winds of 150 mph, making it the strongest hurricane to ever strike the state in terms of windspeed, tied with the 1856 Last Island Hurricane.
August 28 – Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the longest-serving prime minister in the history of Japan, announces his resignation from office, citing ill health.
August 30 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 25 million worldwide. India continues to record the highest daily increase of cases.October
October 1 – The EU began legal proceedings against the UK after it ignored their deadline to drop controversial sections from its internal market Bill.
October 5 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 35 million worldwide. The news coincides with the World Health Organization estimating that total worldwide cases may be around 760 million; roughly a tenth of the global population.
October 15
2020 Thai protests: The Government of Thailand declares a "severe" state of emergency banning gatherings of five or more people, initiating a crackdown on demonstrations and imposing media censorship.
President of Kyrgyzstan Sooronbay Jeenbekov resigns from office after weeks of massive protests in the wake of the October 2020 parliamentary election; opposition leader Sadyr Japarov assumes office as both the acting president and Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan.
October 17 – 2020 New Zealand general election: Jacinda Ardern's Labour Party wins a landslide second term in office, defeating the National Party led by Judith Collins and gaining the country's first parliamentary majority since the introduction of the MMP voting system.
October 19 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 40 million worldwide.
October 20 – NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft briefly touches down on Bennu, becoming the agency's first probe to retrieve samples from an asteroid, with its cargo due for return to Earth in 2023.
October 21 – Heavy rains brought by tropical storm Linfa caused landslides at the Rao Trang 3 hydroelectric plant in Thua Thien Hue, Vietnam, killing 17 construction workers and 13 soldiers who were on a rescue mission.
October 22 – The Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women's Health and Strengthening the Family is signed by government representatives from 34 countries.
October 23
At the end of an 11-year demining process, the Falkland Islands are declared free of land mines, 38 years after the end of the 1982 war.
Israel and Sudan agree to normalise relations, marking the fifth Israel–Arab peace deal.
October 26 – NASA confirms the existence of molecular water on the sunlit side of the Moon, near Clavius crater, at concentrations of up to 412 parts per million.
October 29 – The International Organization for Migration (IOM) confirms the death of least 140 migrants who drowned off the coast of Senegal on a vessel bound for the Spanish Canary Islands. It is the deadliest shipwreck of 2020 so far.
October 30
2020 Aegean Sea earthquake: A magnitude 7.0 earthquake hits Turkey and Greece, killing 119 people and injuring over 1,000.
COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 45 million worldwide.
October 31 – Typhoon Goni makes landfall in the Philippines, becoming the strongest landfalling tropical cyclone in history, displacing hundreds of thousands of people and killing dozens of people in the region.