2017

Events

January

• January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey, killing 39 people and injuring 79 others.
• January 8 – 2017 Jerusalem truck attack: A Palestinian assailant entered the road where the Israeli defense forces were located with a truck, killing 4 people and injuring 15 others.
• January 16 – Turkish Airlines Flight 6491, a cargo flight en route from Hong Kong to Istanbul via Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, crashes in a residential area while attempting to land at Manas International Airport, Bishkek, killing all four crew members on board and 35 people on the ground.
• January 19 – 2016–2017 Gambian constitutional crisis: The Economic Community of West African States launches a military intervention in the Gambia after Yahya Jammeh refuses to cede power following the 2016 presidential elections.
• January 21
• *2016–2017 Gambian constitutional crisis: Following the military intervention of ECOWAS, President Yahya Jammeh resigns from office after 23 years in power and flees into exile to Equatorial Guinea; the democratically elected Adama Barrow assumes office as President of The Gambia.
• *Millions of people worldwide join the Women's March following the inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the United States. 420 marches were reported in the U.S. and 168 in other countries, becoming the largest single-day protest in American history.
• January 27 – U.S. President Donald Trump issues executive order banning travel and immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations. Protests against the immigration order erupt nationwide for about two weeks.
• January 29 – A gunman opens fire at a mosque in Quebec City, Canada, killing 6 and injuring 19 others.
• January 30 – Morocco rejoins the African Union.

  February

• February 11 – North Korea prompts international condemnation by test firing a ballistic missile across the Sea of Japan.
• February 13 – Assassination of Kim Jong-nam: Kim Jong-nam, the eldest son of deceased North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and the half-brother of current North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, is killed after being attacked by two women with VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia.
• February 26 – An annular solar eclipse is visible from Pacific, Chile, Argentina, Atlantic, Africa. It is the 29th eclipse of the 140th saros cycle, which started with a partial solar eclipse visible in the Southern Hemisphere on April 16, 1512, and will conclude with another partial solar eclipse visible in the Northern Hemisphere on June 1, 2774.

  March

• March 3 – Nintendo releases the Switch worldwide.
• March 10 – The UN warns that the world is facing the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II, with up to 20 million people at risk of starvation and famine in Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Nigeria.
• March 14 – March 2017 North American blizzard: A major late-season blizzard affects the Northeastern United States, New England and Canada, dumping up to three feet of snow in the hardest hit areas.
• March 29 – The United Kingdom triggers Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, starting the Brexit negotiations, the talks for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.
• March 30 – SpaceX conducts the world's first reflight of an orbital-class rocket.
• March 31 – Horacio Cartes presents to Congress his plans of allowing the re-election of the president of Paraguay for a second term, going against the Constitution of Paraguay, leading to a political crisis which ended in the storm of Congress by liberal activists and in the assassination of Rodrigo Quintana by the police. After this, the Congress votes against the re-election project.

  April

• April 7 – In response to a suspected chemical weapons attack on a rebel-held town, the U.S. military launches 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at an air base in Syria. Russia describes the strikes as an "aggression", adding they significantly damage U.S.–Russia ties.
• April 13 – In the 2017 Nangarhar airstrike, the U.S. drops the GBU-43/B MOAB, the world's largest non-nuclear weapon, at an ISIL base in the Nangarhar Province of eastern Afghanistan.
• April 15 – Emma Morano, an Italian supercentenarian, becomes the last known person born in the 19th century to die.
• April 25 – The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe unanimously adopted a call to place Turkey back under monitoring due to setbacks in democracy, human rights, the rule of law, freedom of expression, and judicial independence. Turkey last officially exited the monitoring process in 2004 when it began accession negotiations with the European Union.
• April 27 – The 2017 storming of the Macedonian Parliament occurs.

  May

• May 9–13 – The Eurovision Song Contest takes place in Kyiv, Ukraine, and is won by Portuguese entrant Salvador Sobral with the song "Amar Pelos Dois".
• May 12 – WannaCry ransomware attack: Computers around the world are hit by a large-scale ransomware cyberattack, which goes on to affect at least 150 countries.
• May 22 – An ISIL terrorist bombing attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, kills 22 people and injures more than 500 others.

  June

• June 1 – Amidst widespread criticism, the U.S. government announces its decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement in due time.
• June 3
• *London Bridge attack: Eight people are murdered and dozens of civilians are wounded by Islamist terrorists. Three of the attackers are shot dead by the police. ISIS claims responsibility for the attack.
• *2017 Turin stampede: During a screening of the 2017 UEFA Champions League Final, pepper spray is discharged by individuals attempting to rob soccer fans in the square, causing the crowd to panic. There are 3 deaths and 1,672 people wounded.
• June 5
• * Montenegro joins NATO as the 29th member.
• * The Qatar diplomatic crisis of 2017–18 starts, as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and other Arab countries block Qatari access to their seas and air.
• June 7 – Two terrorist attacks are simultaneously carried out by five Islamic State terrorists against the Iranian Parliament building and the Mausoleum of Ruhollah Khomeini, both in Tehran, leaving 17 civilians dead and 43 more wounded.
• June 8 – A snap general election is held in the United Kingdom, three years before the next was due, resulting in a hung parliament, with the Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Theresa May, losing their majority in Parliament. The Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, makes gains for the first time since 1997. Days later, the Conservative Party, now lacking a majority, enters a confidence-and-supply deal with the Northern Ireland loyalist party DUP.
• June 10 – The 2017 World Expo is opened in Astana, Kazakhstan.
• June 14 – The Grenfell Tower Fire in West London claims the lives of 72 residents, making it the worst UK residential fire since World War II.
• June 18 – Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps fire six surface-to-surface mid-range ballistic missiles from domestic bases targeting ISIL forces in the Syrian Deir ez-Zor Governorate in response to the terrorist attacks in Tehran earlier this month.
• June 21 – The Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, Iraq, is destroyed by ISIL.
• June 22 – The African and Caribbean War Memorial unveiled in Brixton, London.
• June 24 – The Goodwin Fire, a wildfire, starts in Yavapai County, Arizona near Mayer and forces evacuations of more than a hundred people.
• June 25 – The World Health Organization estimates that the 2016–17 Yemen cholera outbreak has over 200,000 cases.
• June 26 – The 2017 America's Cup yacht race, sailed in Bermuda, is won by New Zealand's Aotearoa.
• June 27 – 2017 cyberattacks on Ukraine: A series of cyberattacks using the Petya malware begins, affecting organizations in Ukraine.

  July

• July 4 – Russia and China urge North Korea to halt its missile and nuclear programs after it successfully tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile.
• July 7
• * The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is voted for by 122 states.
• * ISIL affiliated insurgents attacked an Egyptian military checkpoint in Northern Sinai's Rafah which resulted in the deaths of 26 Egyptian personnel including colonel Ahmed Mansi and 44 other insurgents.
• July 10 – Iraqi Civil War: Mosul is declared fully liberated from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

  August

• August 5
• * The UN Security Council unanimously approves fresh sanctions on North Korean trade and investment.
• * Mauritania holds a constitutional referendum for approval of proposed amendments to the constitution.
• August 12 – The Unite the Right rally is held in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, by a variety of white nationalist and other far-right groups; Heather Heyer, a counter-protester, is killed after being hit by a car.
• August 17
• * The first observation of a collision of two neutron stars is hailed as a breakthrough in multi-messenger astronomy when both gravitational and electromagnetic waves from the event are detected. Data from the event provided confirmatory evidence for the r-process theory of the origin of heavy elements like gold.
• * 2017 Barcelona attacks: 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub drives a van into pedestrians on La Rambla in Barcelona, killing 13 people and injuring at least 130 others.
• August 18 – The first terrorist attack ever sentenced as a crime in Finland kills two people and injures eight others. Islamic terrorist Abderrahman Bouanane, a Moroccan man carried out the ISIS-inspired attack in southwest Finland.
• August 21 – A total solar eclipse is visible within a band across the entire contiguous United States of America, passing from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts. The moon was just 3 days past perigee, making it relatively large.
• August 25–ongoing – A military operation targeting Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar "seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing", according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
• August 25–30 – Hurricane Harvey strikes the United States as a Category 4 hurricane, causing catastrophic damage to the Houston metropolitan area, mostly due to record-breaking floods. At least 108 deaths are recorded, and total damage reaches $125 billion, making Harvey the costliest natural disaster in United States history, tied with Hurricane Katrina in 2005.