page_title: 21st century
section_title: 2010s
hierarchical_section_title: 21st century / Events / 2010s
caption_attribution_description: L to R: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, King Salman of Saudi Arabia, Melania Trump, and Donald Trump, May 2017 President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump join King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, and the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, Sunday, May 21, 2017, to participate in the inaugural opening of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
context_page_description: The 21st century is the current century of the Anno Domini era or Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. It began on January 1, 2001, and will end on December 31, 2100. It is the first century of the 3rd millennium.
  The beginning of the 21st century has been marked by the rise of a global economy and Third World consumerism, deepening global concern over terrorism and an increase in private enterprise. Effects of global warming and rising sea levels continued, with eight islands disappearing between 2007 and 2014. The Arab Spring of the early 2010s led to mixed outcomes in the Arab world, resulting in several civil wars and governments overthrown.
  The United States has remained the only global superpower, although China is generally considered an emerging superpower.
  In 2017, about half of the world's population lived in "some form of democracy", though only 4.5 percent lived in "full democracies".
  The European Union has greatly expanded in the 21st century, adding
  13 member states. Most member states of the European Union introduced a common currency, the Euro, and the United Kingdom withdrew from the European Union.
context_section_description: 2010 – Julia Gillard becomes the first female Prime Minister of Australia.
  2010 – Kamla Persad-Bissessar becomes the first female Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.
  2010 – Benigno Simeon Aquino III is the first bachelor President of the Philippines and the second to be the child of a previous president.
  2010 – Polish President Lech Kaczyński dies in the April 2010 crash near the city of Smolensk, Russia, along with 95 other people on board.
  2010 – Burmese opposition leader and 1991 Nobel Peace Prize awardee Aung San Suu Kyi is released from her house arrest after being incarcerated since 1989.
  2010 – The Arab Spring, a revolutionary wave which began in Tunisia on 17 December, spread throughout the Middle Eastern countries, with protests, demonstrations, riots and civil wars for free elections and human rights.
  2011 – Anders Behring Breivik carries out terrorist attacks, the first being a bomb blast which targeted government buildings in central Oslo, the second being a massacre at a youth camp on the island of Utøya. It was the deadliest attack in Norway since the Second World War, with 77 people killed and 319 injuries.
  2011 – On May 2, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was responsible for the development of the plans for the 9/11 attacks, is killed in a raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan by the U.S. Navy's SEAL Team 6 (DEVGRU).
  2011 – Britain's largest tabloid newspaper, the News of the World, shuts down after 168 years in print due to the 2009 phone hacking scandal.
  2011 – Dilma Rousseff is elected as the first female President of Brazil. She served as the President until her impeachment and removal from office on 31 August 2016.
  2011 – On July 14, South Sudan, after the January 2011 independence referendum, becomes a member of the United Nations.
  2011 – In September, the Occupy movement, an international protest movement against social and economic inequality, takes shape. It's partially inspired by the Arab Spring and is one of the first significant global protest movements to occur in the age of social media.
  2011 – On October 20, deposed dictator Muammar Gaddafi was captured and killed by the National Liberation Army of Libya, during Libyan Civil War.
  2011 – On December 15, the Iraq War was declared formally over.
  2011 – Kim Jong-il, the supreme leader of North Korea, dies on December 17. His son Kim Jong-un takes power in the country.
  2011 – An estimated two billion people, watch the wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey in London.
  2012 – Xi Jinping becomes the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, making him the paramount leader of China after Hu Jintao.
  2012 – In Benghazi, Libya, an attack was coordinated against two United States government facilities by members of the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Sharia on September 11.
  2012 – A civil unrest broke out in Romania in January 2012, because of the introduction of a new health reform legislation, but also by the unpopularity of Băsescu-backed Boc government. The unrest continued until Victor Ponta's resignation in November 2015, in the wake of the Colectiv nightclub fire.
  2013 – France intervenes with its army in the Northern Mali conflict defeating the Islamists who had taken control of the country.
  2013 – Pope Benedict XVI resigns on February 28, becoming the first pope to step down since 1415. Benedict takes the title pope emeritus. At the subsequent papal conclave, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina is elected pope on March 13, becoming the first Latin American pope. Bergoglio takes the name of Pope Francis.
  2013 – Park Geun-hye is elected President of South Korea, the first woman to hold the position.
  2013 – President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez dies due to prostate cancer and is replaced by Nicolás Maduro.
  2013 – Convicted Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan puts an end to the armed revolt against Turkey.
  2013 – British politician and the first female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dies at the age of 87, from a stroke.
  2013 – Séléka rebels seize power in the Central Afric
caption: U.S. President Donald Trump, King Salman of Saudi Arabia and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi touching The Orb at the 2017 Riyadh summit.
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