2010-2019
timeline contents

2010

• Haiti is struck by a devastating earthquake | • The longest solar eclipse of the 3rd millennium occurs | • Apple debuts the iPad | • The Constellation Program is essentially cancelled | • The worst marine environmental disaster in US history | • Scientists create synthetic life | • One-fifth of Pakistan is flooded | • Solar power is plunging in cost | • Augmented Reality is entering the mainstream | • Macular degeneration is curable | • The first demonstration of solar-sail technology | • Scientists trap antimatter | • Speech-to-speech translation is common in mobile phones | • Robotic manipulation of non-rigid objects |

2011-2014

• British forces withdraw from Afghanistan |

2011

• Japan is devastated by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami | • The death of Osama bin Laden | • Worsening economic crisis in Greece | • The world's first synthetic organ transplant | • South Sudan becomes an independent nation | • The Space Shuttle fleet is retired | • Global population reaches 7bn | • USB 3.0 is widely available | • 22 nanometre chips enter mass production | • Consumer-level robotics are booming | • World's first commercial spaceport | • China's Three Gorges Dam is fully operational |

2012

• The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II | • Euro 2012 is held in Poland and Ukraine | • London hosts the Olympic Games | • Mars Science Laboratory explores the Red Planet | • Voyager I crosses the heliopause | • Windows 8 is released | • Quad-core smartphones and tablets | • Nintendo launches the Wii U | • The Abraj Al-Bait Towers are completed in Mecca | • The Mayan calendar reaches the end of its current cycle |

2013

• North Korea conducts its third nuclear test | • A meteor explodes over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk | • The first creation of human embryonic stem cells by cloning | • The NSA documents are leaked | • Birth of a royal baby | • China overtakes the USA in scientific research | • The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) is launched by NASA | • The first gene therapy in the Western world | • Highly flexible touch sensors are appearing in a range of gadgets | • Launch of the PS4 and Xbox One | • Uruguay becomes the first nation to allow full legalisation of cannabis | • China's first unmanned Moon landing | • The Gaia mission is launched |

2014

• Latvia joins the eurozone | • The first gay marriages are held in England and Wales | • Google Glass is launched to the public | • Brazil hosts the FIFA World Cup | • The 100th anniversary of World War I | • 14 nanometre chips are released | • Scotland votes "no" to independence | • The MAVEN probe arrives at Mars | • India's first Mars mission | • The global average Internet connection is broadband | • A comet passes extremely close to Mars | • Increased automation in retail environments | • The IPCC releases its Fifth Assessment Report | • The new World Trade Center is opened | • The European Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) is operational | • The Rosetta probe deploys its lander on comet 67P | • The first test flight of NASA's Orion spacecraft | • Laser guns are in naval use | • Smart watches are the latest must-have gadget | • NATO ends combat operations in Afghanistan |

2015-2019

• Personal genome sequencing enters the mainstream | • Five-year survival rates for thyroid cancer are nearing 100% | • Virtual reality makes a comeback |

2015

• Lithuania joins the Eurozone | • The Eurasian Union is formed | • Expo 2015 is held in Milan, Italy | • The Large Hadron Collider reaches its maximum operating power | • The first self-regulating artificial heart | • A new generation of hi-tech supercarriers | • Queen Elizabeth II is the longest reigning monarch in British history | • Personal biometric scanners for online banking | • Windows 10 is released by Microsoft | • The Dawn probe arrives at Ceres | • The New Horizons probe arrives at Pluto | • Electric car ownership reaches 1 million worldwide | • Trucks with emergency braking systems are mandatory in Europe | • The deadline for the Millennium Development Goals |

2016

• Completion of the Panama Canal expansion project | • Microchipping of all dogs in England | • Euro 2016 is held in France | • Rio de Janeiro hosts the Olympic Games | • Supercomputers reach 100 petaflops | • The Juno probe arrives at Jupiter | • The world's largest single-aperture telescope is completed in China | • The mining industry is highly automated | • Agricultural robots are increasingly common on farms | • High-definition CCTV cameras are ubiquitous | • OLED displays are in widespread use | • Three-person babies | • China completes the largest environmental cleanup in its history | • Polymer banknotes are introduced by the Bank of England | • United States Presidential Election |

2017-2025

• Worsening crisis in Yemen |

2017

• Total solar eclipse in the US | • The JFK files are released | • Sales of electric and hybrid trucks reach 100,000 annually | • 10 nanometre chips enter mass production | • Web-connected video devices exceed the global population | • Electronic paper is seeing widespread use | • Wireless, implantable devices that monitor health conditions in real time | • A new treatment for prostate cancer |

2018

• South Korean city Pyeongchang hosts the Winter Olympics | • Launch of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) | • Russia hosts the FIFA World Cup | • East Africa's largest ever infrastructure project | • The Japanese Hayabusa-2 probe arrives at 162173 Ryugu | • The Transbay Transit Center is opened in San Francisco | • The NHS begins high-energy proton therapy in England | • Enterprise-grade SSDs reach 100TB of capacity | • InSight touches down on Mars | • Completion of the 100,000 Genomes Project |

2019-2020

• The 5G standard is released |

2019

• The New Horizons probe arrives at Kuiper Belt Object 2014 MU₆₉ | • US copyright begins to expire, starting with all works from 1923 | • Jair Bolsonaro becomes President of Brazil | • The first soft landing on the far side of the Moon | • The Emperor of Japan abdicates | • Europe's Galileo satellite navigation system is fully operational | • Connected vehicle technology is being deployed in a number of countries | • Automated freight transport | • LEDs dominate the lighting industry | • The City Circle Line opens in Copenhagen | • The CHEOPS telescope is deployed to study exoplanets |

2020-2029 »