2021: Year in Review
JANUARY
January 1 - The United States surpasses 20 million cases of COVID-19.
January 1 - The U.S. Senate votes 81–13 for the National Defense Authorization Act 2021, overriding a veto by President Donald Trump for the only time in his presidency.
January 1 - Montana Initiative 190 comes into effect, making Montana the 13th state to legalize recreational cannabis. It passed with 56.9% approval.
January 1 - All books and films published in 1925 enter the public domain in the United States.
January 1 – The African Continental Free Trade Area comes into effect.
January 1 – Dame Elmira Minita Gordon, 1st Governor-General of Belize, dies two days after her 90th birthday. Poor health prompted her to move to the United States in 2016 to live with her sister, Kelorah Franklin. She died in Inglewood, California.
January 2 – New York becomes the fourth state to surpass one million COVID-19 cases, following Texas, California, and Florida.
January 2 - Modibo Keita, 8th Prime Minister of Mali, dies at age 78.
January 2 - Michael McKevitt, Irish republican paramilitary leader, dies at age 71 following a battle with cancer. His role in the Real IRA led to him being convicted of directing terrorism as the leader of the paramilitary organization.
January 3 – Gerry Marsden, English musician, dies at age 78 after being diagnosed with a blood infection in his heart. He is best known for being leader of the Merseybeat band Gerry and the Pacemakers. He was the younger brother of fellow band member Freddie Marsden. Gerry and the Pacemakers had the distinction of being the first act to have their first three recordings go to number 1 in the UK charts. Although they never had a number 1 in the United States, they were the second-most successful group from Liverpool, after the Beatles, to have hits on the United States pop charts. Their 1965 musical film Ferry Cross the Mersey was co-written by English television screenwriter Tony Warren.
January 4 – Michigan surpasses 500,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases.
January 4 – The border between Qatar and Saudi Arabia reopens.
January 4 - Albert Roux, French chef and restaurateur, dies at age 85 following a long illness. He and his brother Michel operated Le Gavroche in London's Mayfair, the first restaurant in the UK to gain three Michelin stars. He helped train a series of chefs that went on to win Michelin stars, and his son, Michel Roux, Jr., continues to run Le Gavroche.
January 5 - Two runoff elections are held in Georgia to decide U.S. Senate seats.
January 5 - President Donald Trump signs an executive order barring transactions with eight Chinese software applications (including Alipay, WeChat Pay, and Tencent QQ) citing concerns about Chinese access to sensitive data of American citizens.
January 6 - Five people die and at least 56 police officers and five civilians are injured after supporters of President Donald Trump storm the United States Capitol, forcing Congress to evacuate.
January 6 - During the Electoral College vote count, Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Paul Gosar object to Arizona's election results, the first time a vote is forced to accept or reject the objection since 2004. Representative Scott Perry and Senator Josh Hawley subsequently object to Pennsylvania's election results. In 2004 an objection was submitted against Ohio's electoral votes. The objection was supported by 31 Democrats in the House and by Senator Barbara Boxer.
January 7 - Congress reconvenes and formally certifies Joe Biden as the next President of the United States on the morning of January 7. President Trump formally concedes to an orderly transition of power to Joe Biden.
January 7 - Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk becomes the world's richest person, with a net worth exceeding $185 billion, surpassing Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
January 7 - Facebook indefinitely bans President Donald Trump from all of its platforms, citing his role in the January 6 Capitol riot.
January 7 - Betsy DeVos resigns as Education Secretary in protest of President Trump's role in the January 6 Capitol riot.
January 7 – Michael Apted, English filmmaker, dies at age 79. Apted began working in television and directed the Up documentary series (1964–2019). He later directed Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), which was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture. His subsequent work included Gorillas in the Mist (1988), Nell (1994), The World Is Not Enough (1999), and Enigma (2001). His film Amazing Grace (2006) premiered at the closing of the Toronto International Film Festival that year. In 2003, he was elected president of the Directors Guild of America, a position he served until 2009.
January 8 - Twitter permanently suspends President Trump's personal account.
January 8 - Amid an industry crackdown on extremist content following the January 6 Capitol riot, Google removes the mobile app of social networking service Parler from Google Play.
January 8 - After 36 years, Alex Trebek's final episode of Jeopardy! airs.
January 9 - Apple suspends the Parler app from its App Store.
January 9 – The Trump administration lifts longstanding restrictions on contacts between Taiwanese and U.S. officials.
January 9 - A shooting that started in Chicago and ended in Evanston, left five people dead and two injured before the shooter was shot and killed by police.
January 10 - Parler goes offline when Amazon ceases to provide its cloud computing services.
January 10 – Kim Jong-un is elected as the General Secretary of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, inheriting the title from his father Kim Jong-il, who died in 2011.
January 11 - Ken Jennings becomes the temporary host on Jeopardy! as the search for a new permanent host continues.
January 11 – Alabama Crimson Tide football head coach Nick Saban surpasses former head coach Bear Bryant for most national titles won in college football history, seven total, following a 52-24 win over the Ohio State Buckeyes in the 2021 CFB National Championship.
January 11 - Sheldon Adelson, American businessman and casino magnate, dies at age 87 from Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He was the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corporation, which owns the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, and the parent company of Venetian Macao Limited, which operates The Venetian Las Vegas and the Sands Expo and Convention Center. He owned the Israeli daily newspaper Israel Hayom, the Israeli weekly newspaper Makor Rishon, and the American daily newspaper the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Adelson created the Adelson Foundation in 2007, a private charity focusing on healthcare and support of Israel and the Jewish people. He was a major contributor to Republican Party candidates and was often dubbed a "kingmaker" due to the size and frequency of his donations. He and his wife Miriam Adelson were Donald Trump's largest donors, providing the largest donation to Trump's 2016 campaign, his presidential inauguration, his defense fund against the Mueller investigation into Russian interference, and the 2020 campaign. He was also a major backer of Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In September 2020, Adelson was listed by Forbes as having a fortune of $33.5 billion, making him the 28th-richest person in the world and 19th in the Forbes 400.
January 11 - Kathleen Heddle, Canadian Olympic rower, dies at age 55 from a combination of breast cancer, lymphoma, melanoma and brain cancer. She and her long-time rowing partner Marnie McBean were the first Canadians to be awarded three Olympic gold medals at the Summer Games in 1992 and 1996. They also won a silver in double sculls at the 1994 World Championships.
January 13 - Donald Trump becomes the first U.S. president to be impeached for a second time, following a 232–197 vote in the House of Representatives.
January 13 - Former Governor of Michigan Rick Snyder is charged with two counts of willful neglect of duty in connection with the Flint water crisis. Former state health director Nick Lyon and many others are also charged.
January 13 - Lisa Marie Montgomery is executed by the federal government, the first female federal inmate to be executed since 1953. In 2004 she strangled 36-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett and cut her unborn fetus, eight months into gestation, from her womb. The baby was safely recovered by authorities and returned to the father.
January 13 - The NHL's shortened 2020–21 season begins, running for 56 games per team and ending on May 8.
January 13 – In Lyon, France, the first transplant of both arms and shoulders is performed on an Icelandic patient at the Édouard Herriot Hospital.
January 13 – Siegfried Fischbacher, German-born American magician, dies at age 81 from pancreatic cancer. Siegfried & Roy were a duo of magicians and entertainers, best known for their appearances with white lions and white tigers.
January 14 – Texas becomes the first state to administer one million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
January 14 – The 2021 Ugandan general election is held.
January 15 – The National Rifle Association files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announces plans to reincorporate in Texas.
January 15 - The Lao People's Revolutionary Party elects Thongloun Sisoulith as its new General Secretary, replacing retiring chief Bounnhang Vorachith. Sisoulith is elected for a five-year term as top leader in Laos.
January 15 - The global death toll from COVID-19 passes 2 million.
January 16 - Dustin Higgs is executed by the federal government, becoming the 13th and final person to be executed by the Trump administration. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2000 for his role in the January 1996 murders of three women in Maryland.
January 16 - President-elect Joe Biden announces he will elevate the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to a Cabinet-level position, making its nominated director Eric Lander the first biologist in the Cabinet. Lander was sworn in as director on June 2, 2021. He took his oath using a rare 1492 copy of the Pirkei Avot, a Rabbinic Jewish text that translates to “Chapters of the Fathers”.
January 16 – Phil Spector, American record producer and convicted murderer, dies at age 81 due to complications of COVID-19 while already in poor health. He is best known for his innovative recording practices and entrepreneurship in the 1960s, followed decades later by his two trials and conviction for murder in the 2000s. Spector developed the Wall of Sound, a production style that he described as a Wagnerian approach to rock and roll. He is regarded as one of the most influential figures in pop music history and one of the most successful producers of the 1960s. In 2009, after spending three decades in semi-retirement, he was convicted for the 2003 murder of the actress Lana Clarkson and sentenced to 19 years to life in prison. He died in prison.
January 17 – Riley June Williams, a 22-year-old woman suspected of stealing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's laptop during the January 6 Capitol riot, is charged by the FBI with intent to sell the device to Russian foreign intelligence services.
January 18 - Vice President-elect Kamala Harris resigns from her U.S. Senate seat. Her chosen successor, former California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, is the first Latino to represent California in the Senate.
January 18 - The 1776 Report is released by the 1776 Commission. Among other things, the document identifies "progressivism" and "racism and identity politics" as "challenges to America's principles" and likens them to "communism," "slavery," and "fascism." It refers to John C. Calhoun as "the leading forerunner of identity politics" and criticizes some aspects of the civil rights movement. The document also describes American universities as "often today [...] hotbeds of anti-Americanism, libel, and censorship" and criticizes feminist movements. It concludes with recommendations to promote positive stories and images of the country's founders at home, in schools, and in the arts, among other things.
January 19 - Nationwide COVID-19 deaths surpass 400,000.
January 19 - On his final full day in office, President Trump issues pardons for 144 people.
January 19 - New York State Office of Court Administration employee Brendan Hunt is arrested by the FBI for encouraging public executions of members of the U.S. Congress on social media.
January 20 - Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th President of the United States. Kamala Harris becomes the first woman, first Asian American, and first African American to become Vice President of the United States. Donald Trump becomes the first outgoing president to boycott his successor's inauguration since Andrew Johnson in 1869.
January 20 - President Biden signs his first executive orders reversing several Trump administration actions, including rejoining the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization, repealing the 2017 travel bans, ending funding for the United States–Mexico border wall, and revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.
January 20 - Mira Furlan, Croatian actress and singer, dies at age 65 from West Nile virus. She was best known for her roles as the Minbari Ambassador Delenn in the science fiction television series Babylon 5 (1993–1998), and as Danielle Rousseau in Lost (2004–2010).
January 20 - Major General Justin Lekhanya dies at age 82. He was the Minister of Defence and Chairman of the Military Council of Lesotho from January 24, 1986 to May 2, 1991. Lekhanya was commander of the army when he overthrew Prime Minister Leabua Jonathan in a 1986 military coup following revelations that he had been the victim of a hoax by two Pan-Africanist Congress military commanders exiled from South Africa. The hoax had resulted in Lekhanya financing the Lesotho Liberation Army against himself.
January 21 – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves Cabenuva as a complete regimen for the treatment of HIV/AIDS.
January 22 – Recreational cannabis sales begin in Arizona.
January 22 – The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons, comes into effect.
January 23 – Hal Holbrook, American actor, dies at age 95. He first received critical acclaim in 1954 for a one-man stage show he developed, Mark Twain Tonight!, performing as Mark Twain, while studying at Denison University. He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1966 for his portrayal of Twain. He would continue to perform his signature role for over 60 years, only retiring the show in 2017 due to his failing health. Throughout his career, he also won five Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on television and was nominated for an Academy Award for his work in the film Into the Wild (2007).
January 24 - Nationwide confirmed COVID-19 cases surpass 25 million.
January 24 - The Tampa Bay Buccaneers advance to Super Bowl LV after a 31–26 victory against the Green Bay Packers, the first time an NFL team plays the Super Bowl on their home field.
January 24 - Six people including a pregnant woman were killed and a teen was injured in a shooting at a house on the northeast side of Indianapolis. The teen suspect (Raymond Childs III) is currently in custody.
January 24 – 2021 Portuguese presidential election: Incumbent president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is reelected.
January 25 - President Biden repeals the Trump administration's ban on transgender personnel in the military.
January 25 - Dominion Voting Systems sues former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, accusing him of defamation during the 2020 presidential election.
January 26 - The Biden administration announces it will purchase 200 million COVID-19 vaccine doses from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, in addition to the prior order of 400 million.
January 26 - The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases exceeds 100 million worldwide.
January 27 - The U.S. Army announces new personal grooming and appearance standards, relaxing rules regarding makeup and jewelry and allowing for more diverse hairstyles.
January 27 - President Biden signs a series of executive orders regarding climate change, including halting new oil and gas leases on public lands, procuring an all-electric federal vehicle fleet, and doubling offshore wind power by 2030.
January 27 - One of the 14 men accused in the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot pleads guilty and agrees to testify against his co-defendants, with sentencing set for July 8.
January 27 - Investment funds report major losses after video game retailer GameStop's stock prices rise 900 times their record low. The next day, January 28, financial services company Robinhood restricts the trade of stocks of several companies, including GameStop, triggering outrage online.
January 27 - Cloris Leachman, American actress, dies at age 94 due to a stroke and COVID-19. She won many accolades, including eight Primetime Emmy Awards from 22 nominations, making her the most nominated and, along with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, most awarded performer in Emmy history. She won an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Daytime Emmy Award. She starred in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Young Frankenstein (1974), The Muppet Movie (1979), My Little Pony: The Movie (1986), Hansel and Gretel (1987), Prancer (1989), The Beverly Hillbillies (1993), Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996), The Iron Giant (1999), Bad Santa (2003), Spanglish (2004), The Longest Yard (2005), Scary Movie 4 (2006), Ponyo (2009), Inglourious Basterds (2009), The Croods (2013), I Can Only Imagine (2018), and The Croods: A New Age (2020).
January 28 - Cicely Tyson, American actress, dies at age 96. Her funeral was held February 16 at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, and was attended by Tyler Perry, her godson Lenny Kravitz, and Bill and Hillary Clinton. In a career which spanned more than seven decades, she became known for her portrayal of strong African-American women. Tyson received three Primetime Emmy Awards, four Black Reel Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Award, one Tony Award, an honorary Academy Award, and a Peabody Award. Her films roles included: Roots (1977), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Because of Winn-Dixie (2005), and The Help (2011).
January 29 - The European Union invokes Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol following a row over COVID-19 vaccine supplies before reversing the decision.
January 31 – Nguyễn Phú Trọng is re-elected for a third five-year term as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
January 31 – February 3 – A major winter storm strikes the Northeastern United States, bringing nearly 3 feet of snow to some areas, causing over 575,000 power outages, and killing six people.
January 4 – Michigan surpasses 500,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases.
January 4 – The border between Qatar and Saudi Arabia reopens.
January 4 - Albert Roux, French chef and restaurateur, dies at age 85 following a long illness. He and his brother Michel operated Le Gavroche in London's Mayfair, the first restaurant in the UK to gain three Michelin stars. He helped train a series of chefs that went on to win Michelin stars, and his son, Michel Roux, Jr., continues to run Le Gavroche.
January 5 - Two runoff elections are held in Georgia to decide U.S. Senate seats.
January 5 - President Donald Trump signs an executive order barring transactions with eight Chinese software applications (including Alipay, WeChat Pay, and Tencent QQ) citing concerns about Chinese access to sensitive data of American citizens.
January 6 - Five people die and at least 56 police officers and five civilians are injured after supporters of President Donald Trump storm the United States Capitol, forcing Congress to evacuate.
January 6 - During the Electoral College vote count, Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Paul Gosar object to Arizona's election results, the first time a vote is forced to accept or reject the objection since 2004. Representative Scott Perry and Senator Josh Hawley subsequently object to Pennsylvania's election results. In 2004 an objection was submitted against Ohio's electoral votes. The objection was supported by 31 Democrats in the House and by Senator Barbara Boxer.
January 7 - Congress reconvenes and formally certifies Joe Biden as the next President of the United States on the morning of January 7. President Trump formally concedes to an orderly transition of power to Joe Biden.
January 7 - Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk becomes the world's richest person, with a net worth exceeding $185 billion, surpassing Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
January 7 - Facebook indefinitely bans President Donald Trump from all of its platforms, citing his role in the January 6 Capitol riot.
January 7 - Betsy DeVos resigns as Education Secretary in protest of President Trump's role in the January 6 Capitol riot.
January 7 – Michael Apted, English filmmaker, dies at age 79. Apted began working in television and directed the Up documentary series (1964–2019). He later directed Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), which was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture. His subsequent work included Gorillas in the Mist (1988), Nell (1994), The World Is Not Enough (1999), and Enigma (2001). His film Amazing Grace (2006) premiered at the closing of the Toronto International Film Festival that year. In 2003, he was elected president of the Directors Guild of America, a position he served until 2009.
January 8 - Twitter permanently suspends President Trump's personal account.
January 8 - Amid an industry crackdown on extremist content following the January 6 Capitol riot, Google removes the mobile app of social networking service Parler from Google Play.
January 8 - After 36 years, Alex Trebek's final episode of Jeopardy! airs.
January 9 - Apple suspends the Parler app from its App Store.
January 9 – The Trump administration lifts longstanding restrictions on contacts between Taiwanese and U.S. officials.
January 9 - A shooting that started in Chicago and ended in Evanston, left five people dead and two injured before the shooter was shot and killed by police.
January 10 - Parler goes offline when Amazon ceases to provide its cloud computing services.
January 10 – Kim Jong-un is elected as the General Secretary of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, inheriting the title from his father Kim Jong-il, who died in 2011.
January 11 - Ken Jennings becomes the temporary host on Jeopardy! as the search for a new permanent host continues.
January 11 – Alabama Crimson Tide football head coach Nick Saban surpasses former head coach Bear Bryant for most national titles won in college football history, seven total, following a 52-24 win over the Ohio State Buckeyes in the 2021 CFB National Championship.
January 11 - Sheldon Adelson, American businessman and casino magnate, dies at age 87 from Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He was the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corporation, which owns the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, and the parent company of Venetian Macao Limited, which operates The Venetian Las Vegas and the Sands Expo and Convention Center. He owned the Israeli daily newspaper Israel Hayom, the Israeli weekly newspaper Makor Rishon, and the American daily newspaper the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Adelson created the Adelson Foundation in 2007, a private charity focusing on healthcare and support of Israel and the Jewish people. He was a major contributor to Republican Party candidates and was often dubbed a "kingmaker" due to the size and frequency of his donations. He and his wife Miriam Adelson were Donald Trump's largest donors, providing the largest donation to Trump's 2016 campaign, his presidential inauguration, his defense fund against the Mueller investigation into Russian interference, and the 2020 campaign. He was also a major backer of Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In September 2020, Adelson was listed by Forbes as having a fortune of $33.5 billion, making him the 28th-richest person in the world and 19th in the Forbes 400.
January 11 - Kathleen Heddle, Canadian Olympic rower, dies at age 55 from a combination of breast cancer, lymphoma, melanoma and brain cancer. She and her long-time rowing partner Marnie McBean were the first Canadians to be awarded three Olympic gold medals at the Summer Games in 1992 and 1996. They also won a silver in double sculls at the 1994 World Championships.
January 13 - Donald Trump becomes the first U.S. president to be impeached for a second time, following a 232–197 vote in the House of Representatives.
January 13 - Former Governor of Michigan Rick Snyder is charged with two counts of willful neglect of duty in connection with the Flint water crisis. Former state health director Nick Lyon and many others are also charged.
January 13 - Lisa Marie Montgomery is executed by the federal government, the first female federal inmate to be executed since 1953. In 2004 she strangled 36-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett and cut her unborn fetus, eight months into gestation, from her womb. The baby was safely recovered by authorities and returned to the father.
January 13 - The NHL's shortened 2020–21 season begins, running for 56 games per team and ending on May 8.
January 13 – In Lyon, France, the first transplant of both arms and shoulders is performed on an Icelandic patient at the Édouard Herriot Hospital.
January 13 – Siegfried Fischbacher, German-born American magician, dies at age 81 from pancreatic cancer. Siegfried & Roy were a duo of magicians and entertainers, best known for their appearances with white lions and white tigers.
January 14 – Texas becomes the first state to administer one million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
January 14 – The 2021 Ugandan general election is held.
January 15 – The National Rifle Association files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announces plans to reincorporate in Texas.
January 15 - The Lao People's Revolutionary Party elects Thongloun Sisoulith as its new General Secretary, replacing retiring chief Bounnhang Vorachith. Sisoulith is elected for a five-year term as top leader in Laos.
January 15 - The global death toll from COVID-19 passes 2 million.
January 16 - Dustin Higgs is executed by the federal government, becoming the 13th and final person to be executed by the Trump administration. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2000 for his role in the January 1996 murders of three women in Maryland.
January 16 - President-elect Joe Biden announces he will elevate the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to a Cabinet-level position, making its nominated director Eric Lander the first biologist in the Cabinet. Lander was sworn in as director on June 2, 2021. He took his oath using a rare 1492 copy of the Pirkei Avot, a Rabbinic Jewish text that translates to “Chapters of the Fathers”.
January 16 – Phil Spector, American record producer and convicted murderer, dies at age 81 due to complications of COVID-19 while already in poor health. He is best known for his innovative recording practices and entrepreneurship in the 1960s, followed decades later by his two trials and conviction for murder in the 2000s. Spector developed the Wall of Sound, a production style that he described as a Wagnerian approach to rock and roll. He is regarded as one of the most influential figures in pop music history and one of the most successful producers of the 1960s. In 2009, after spending three decades in semi-retirement, he was convicted for the 2003 murder of the actress Lana Clarkson and sentenced to 19 years to life in prison. He died in prison.
January 17 – Riley June Williams, a 22-year-old woman suspected of stealing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's laptop during the January 6 Capitol riot, is charged by the FBI with intent to sell the device to Russian foreign intelligence services.
January 18 - Vice President-elect Kamala Harris resigns from her U.S. Senate seat. Her chosen successor, former California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, is the first Latino to represent California in the Senate.
January 18 - The 1776 Report is released by the 1776 Commission. Among other things, the document identifies "progressivism" and "racism and identity politics" as "challenges to America's principles" and likens them to "communism," "slavery," and "fascism." It refers to John C. Calhoun as "the leading forerunner of identity politics" and criticizes some aspects of the civil rights movement. The document also describes American universities as "often today [...] hotbeds of anti-Americanism, libel, and censorship" and criticizes feminist movements. It concludes with recommendations to promote positive stories and images of the country's founders at home, in schools, and in the arts, among other things.
January 19 - Nationwide COVID-19 deaths surpass 400,000.
January 19 - On his final full day in office, President Trump issues pardons for 144 people.
January 19 - New York State Office of Court Administration employee Brendan Hunt is arrested by the FBI for encouraging public executions of members of the U.S. Congress on social media.
January 20 - Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th President of the United States. Kamala Harris becomes the first woman, first Asian American, and first African American to become Vice President of the United States. Donald Trump becomes the first outgoing president to boycott his successor's inauguration since Andrew Johnson in 1869.
January 20 - President Biden signs his first executive orders reversing several Trump administration actions, including rejoining the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization, repealing the 2017 travel bans, ending funding for the United States–Mexico border wall, and revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.
January 20 - Mira Furlan, Croatian actress and singer, dies at age 65 from West Nile virus. She was best known for her roles as the Minbari Ambassador Delenn in the science fiction television series Babylon 5 (1993–1998), and as Danielle Rousseau in Lost (2004–2010).
January 20 - Major General Justin Lekhanya dies at age 82. He was the Minister of Defence and Chairman of the Military Council of Lesotho from January 24, 1986 to May 2, 1991. Lekhanya was commander of the army when he overthrew Prime Minister Leabua Jonathan in a 1986 military coup following revelations that he had been the victim of a hoax by two Pan-Africanist Congress military commanders exiled from South Africa. The hoax had resulted in Lekhanya financing the Lesotho Liberation Army against himself.
January 21 – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves Cabenuva as a complete regimen for the treatment of HIV/AIDS.
January 22 – Recreational cannabis sales begin in Arizona.
January 22 – The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons, comes into effect.
January 23 – Hal Holbrook, American actor, dies at age 95. He first received critical acclaim in 1954 for a one-man stage show he developed, Mark Twain Tonight!, performing as Mark Twain, while studying at Denison University. He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1966 for his portrayal of Twain. He would continue to perform his signature role for over 60 years, only retiring the show in 2017 due to his failing health. Throughout his career, he also won five Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on television and was nominated for an Academy Award for his work in the film Into the Wild (2007).
January 24 - Nationwide confirmed COVID-19 cases surpass 25 million.
January 24 - The Tampa Bay Buccaneers advance to Super Bowl LV after a 31–26 victory against the Green Bay Packers, the first time an NFL team plays the Super Bowl on their home field.
January 24 - Six people including a pregnant woman were killed and a teen was injured in a shooting at a house on the northeast side of Indianapolis. The teen suspect (Raymond Childs III) is currently in custody.
January 24 – 2021 Portuguese presidential election: Incumbent president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is reelected.
January 25 - President Biden repeals the Trump administration's ban on transgender personnel in the military.
January 25 - Dominion Voting Systems sues former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, accusing him of defamation during the 2020 presidential election.
January 26 - The Biden administration announces it will purchase 200 million COVID-19 vaccine doses from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, in addition to the prior order of 400 million.
January 26 - The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases exceeds 100 million worldwide.
January 27 - The U.S. Army announces new personal grooming and appearance standards, relaxing rules regarding makeup and jewelry and allowing for more diverse hairstyles.
January 27 - President Biden signs a series of executive orders regarding climate change, including halting new oil and gas leases on public lands, procuring an all-electric federal vehicle fleet, and doubling offshore wind power by 2030.
January 27 - One of the 14 men accused in the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot pleads guilty and agrees to testify against his co-defendants, with sentencing set for July 8.
January 27 - Investment funds report major losses after video game retailer GameStop's stock prices rise 900 times their record low. The next day, January 28, financial services company Robinhood restricts the trade of stocks of several companies, including GameStop, triggering outrage online.
January 27 - Cloris Leachman, American actress, dies at age 94 due to a stroke and COVID-19. She won many accolades, including eight Primetime Emmy Awards from 22 nominations, making her the most nominated and, along with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, most awarded performer in Emmy history. She won an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Daytime Emmy Award. She starred in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Young Frankenstein (1974), The Muppet Movie (1979), My Little Pony: The Movie (1986), Hansel and Gretel (1987), Prancer (1989), The Beverly Hillbillies (1993), Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996), The Iron Giant (1999), Bad Santa (2003), Spanglish (2004), The Longest Yard (2005), Scary Movie 4 (2006), Ponyo (2009), Inglourious Basterds (2009), The Croods (2013), I Can Only Imagine (2018), and The Croods: A New Age (2020).
January 28 - Cicely Tyson, American actress, dies at age 96. Her funeral was held February 16 at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, and was attended by Tyler Perry, her godson Lenny Kravitz, and Bill and Hillary Clinton. In a career which spanned more than seven decades, she became known for her portrayal of strong African-American women. Tyson received three Primetime Emmy Awards, four Black Reel Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Award, one Tony Award, an honorary Academy Award, and a Peabody Award. Her films roles included: Roots (1977), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Because of Winn-Dixie (2005), and The Help (2011).
January 29 - The European Union invokes Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol following a row over COVID-19 vaccine supplies before reversing the decision.
January 31 – Nguyễn Phú Trọng is re-elected for a third five-year term as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
January 31 – February 3 – A major winter storm strikes the Northeastern United States, bringing nearly 3 feet of snow to some areas, causing over 575,000 power outages, and killing six people.
FEBRUARY
February 1 - Oregon Measure 110 comes into effect, making Oregon the first state to decriminalize the possession of small quantities of all illicit drugs.
February 1 - Actress Evan Rachel Wood alleges that Marilyn Manson sexually abused and groomed her as a teenager. They were partners from 2006 to 2010 while she was an adult. Four other women make similar claims while Manson denies the allegations.
February 1 - A coup d'état in Myanmar removes Aung San Suu Kyi from power and restores military rule leading to widespread demonstrations across the country.
February 1 - Kosovo officially establishes diplomatic ties with Israel and announces plans to open an embassy in Jerusalem.
February 1 - COVID-19 pandemic: The number of vaccinations administered worldwide exceeds 100 million.
February 1 – Edward Babiuch, 5th Prime Minister of the Polish People's Republic, dies at age 93. He was the longest-lived former Polish prime minister, improving on the record of Adam Jerzy Czartoryski who died at age 91 in 1861.
February 2 - Manson is dropped by his record label, Loma Vista Recordings, and removed from two TV shows: American Gods and Creepshow.
February 2 - 2021 Sunrise, Florida shootout: During the service of a warrant, a suspect kills two FBI agents and injures three others before barricading himself inside his home. He is later found dead, reportedly from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The shootout was the most violent incident in the FBI's history since 1986.
February 2 - The United States Senate votes 50–49 to pass a budget resolution that would allow Democrats to pass President Biden's $1.9 trillion relief package without support from Republicans. Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska missed the vote.
February 2 - Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos steps down after more than 26 years to focus on Blue Origin and names Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy as his successor.
February 2 - 2021 Muskogee shooting: Five children and one adult were shot and killed, and one other adult suffered life-threatening injuries, after a home shooting. The slain adult was the adult brother of the perpetrator.
February 2 – Fausta Morganti, former Captain Regent of San Marino, dies at age 76 from COVID-19. She was one of the first three women elected to the Grand and General Council in 1974.
February 3 – Tony Trabert, American tennis player and commentator, dies at age 90. Trabert was ranked world No. 1 amateur by many sources in 1953. He was the winner of ten Grand Slam titles – five in singles and five in doubles. Until Michael Chang won the French Open in 1989, Trabert was the last American to hoist the championship trophy.
February 4 - The United States House of Representatives votes 230-199 to remove Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) from her assignments on the Education and Labor and Budget committees, following controversial comments made about the mass shootings in Parkland and Sandy Hook, as well as calling for violence towards Democrats, and the support of numerous conspiracy theories such as QAnon.
February 4 - Smartmatic files a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against the Fox Corporation and its cable news hosts Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, and Maria Bartiromo as well as frequent guests and ex-President Donald Trump's former lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who spread false conspiracy theories about them after the 2020 United States presidential election.
February 4 – President Joe Biden announces that the United States will cease providing weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for use in the Yemeni Civil War.
February 4 – Millie Hughes-Fulford, American astronaut and molecular biologist, dies at age 75 of lymphoma. She was a NASA payload specialist who flew aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in June 1991. At the end of its final flight in February 2003, Columbia disintegrated upon reentry, killing the seven-member crew of STS-107 and destroying most of the scientific payloads aboard.
February 5 - The Senate passes a $1.9 trillion budget for COVID-19 relief. The 50-50 tie-breaker vote is broken by Vice President Kamala Harris.
February 5 - U.S. Reps Andrew Clyde (R-GA) and Louie Gohmert (R-TX) are fined $5,000 for refusing to go through the metal detectors outside the House chamber.
February 5 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves Breyanzi to treat large B-cell lymphoma.
February 5 - Christopher Plummer, Canadian actor, dies at age 91 two-and-a-half weeks after a fall that resulted in a blow to the head. His career spanned seven decades, gaining recognition for his performances in film, television, and stage. He made his Broadway debut in 1954 and continued to act in leading roles on stage. Plummer played numerous major historical figures. He is one of the few performers to have received the Triple Crown of Acting, and the only Canadian to accomplish this feat. In 2011, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor at the age of 82 for Beginners (2010), becoming the oldest person to win an acting award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (a distinction he held until being supplanted by 83-year-old Anthony Hopkins in 2021), and he also received an Oscar nomination at the age of 88 for All the Money in the World, making him the oldest person to be nominated in any acting category at the Academy Awards.
February 5 - Leon Spinks, American professional boxer, dies at age 67 from prostate cancer. In only his eighth professional fight, he won the undisputed heavyweight championship in 1978 after defeating Muhammad Ali in a split decision, in what is considered one of the biggest upsets in boxing history. Spinks was later stripped of the WBC title for facing Ali in an unapproved rematch seven months later, which he lost by a unanimous decision. He won gold at the 1976 Summer Olympics; the latter alongside his brother Michael Spinks, who won middleweight gold. Leon served in the United States Marine Corps from 1973 to 1976, rising to the rank of corporal. He was stationed at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and was on the Marine Corps Boxing Team. Spinks also had a brief career as a professional wrestler in the 1990s.
February 6 – George Shultz, American politician, diplomat and economist, dies at age 100. He served in various positions under three different Republican presidents and is one of only two people to have held four different Cabinet-level posts (the other being Elliot Richardson). Shultz played a major role in shaping the foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration. From 1974 to 1982, he was an executive of the Bechtel Group, an engineering and services company. In the 2010s, Shultz was a prominent figure in the scandal of the biotech firm Theranos, continuing to support it as a board member in the face of mounting evidence of fraud. President Joe Biden reacted to Shultz's death by saying, "He was a gentleman of honor and ideas, dedicated to public service and respectful debate, even into his 100th year on Earth. That’s why multiple presidents, of both political parties, sought his counsel. I regret that, as president, I will not be able to benefit from his wisdom, as have so many of my predecessors."
February 7 - The Tampa Bay Buccaneers win Super Bowl LV, defeating the Kansas City Chiefs 31–9, making them the first wildcard team to win the Super Bowl since the 2010 Green Bay Packers and the first to win it in their home stadium.
February 7 - U.S. Rep Ron Wright (R-TX) passes away at the age of 67 after contracting COVID-19, making him the first sitting member of Congress to die of the disease.
February 8 – South Dakota Constitutional Amendment A, which would have legalized recreational cannabis in South Dakota on July 1, is struck down as unconstitutional by judge Christina Klinger on the grounds that it violated the state's single-subject rule for ballot initiatives.
February 8 - Mary Wilson, American singer, dies at age 76 from hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. She gained worldwide recognition as a founding member of The Supremes, the most successful Motown act of the 1960s and the best-charting female group in U.S. chart history, as well as one of the best-selling girl groups of all-time. The trio reached number one on Billboard's Hot 100 with 12 of their singles, ten of which feature Wilson on backing vocals.
February 9 - The second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump begins. He is acquitted four days later, February 13 with a 57–43 vote in the Senate, ten votes short of the required two-thirds majority for conviction. Chief Justice John Roberts refused to participate because he believes impeachment only applies to the current President.
February 9 - COVID-19 drug development: The FDA issues an emergency use authorization (EUA) for bamlanivimab and etesevimab.
February 9 - COVID-19 pandemic: A joint WHO–China investigation into the source of the outbreak concludes. Investigators deem a Wuhan laboratory leak to be "extremely unlikely", with a "natural reservoir" in bats being a more likely origin.
February 9 - The UAE's uncrewed Hope spacecraft becomes the first Arabian mission to successfully enter orbit around Mars. The space probe will study daily and seasonal weather cycles, weather events in the lower atmosphere such as dust storms, and how the weather varies in different regions of the planet. It will also add to knowledge about Mars atmospheric hydrogen and oxygen loss and other possible reasons behind the planet's drastic climate changes.
February 9 – Chick Corea, American jazz keyboardist, dies at age 79 of cancer. His compositions are widely considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis's band in the late 1960s, he participated in the birth of jazz fusion. Corea is considered one of the foremost jazz pianists of the post-John Coltrane era. Corea continued to collaborate frequently while exploring different musical styles throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He won 25 Grammy Awards and was nominated over 60 times. Corea said that Scientology became a profound influence on his musical direction in the early 1970s.
February 10 – Larry Flynt, American porn publisher, dies at age 78 from heart failure. He published the magazine Hustler. Flynt fought several high-profile legal battles involving the First Amendment, and unsuccessfully ran for public office. He once attempted a presidential run as a Republican in 1984. In 2003, Flynt was a candidate in the recall election of California governor Gray Davis. He finished seventh in a field of 135 candidates with 17,458 votes. He was paralyzed from the waist down due to injuries sustained in a 1978 assassination attempt by racist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin. Flynt's daughter, Tonya Flynt-Vega, accused him of sexually abusing her as a child. In the 1998 book, “Hustled: My Journey from Fear to Faith”, Flynt-Vega writes about her father showing her images from Hustler.
February 11 - President Biden terminates the national emergency declaration on the US-Mexico border which President Trump had used to pay for his wall.
February 11 - In Fort Worth, Texas, six people are killed in an accident involving 133 vehicles on Interstate 35W, affected by weather conditions left by a snowstorm system.
February 12 - The United States Senate votes by unanimous consent to award United States Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman the Congressional Gold Medal for keeping rioters away from the Senate chamber during the storming of the United States Capitol.
February 12 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves Cosela as the first therapy in its class to reduce the frequency of chemotherapy-induced bone marrow suppression.
February 13 – Yury Vlasov, Soviet and Russian weightlifter and writer, dies at age 85 of natural causes. He competed at the 1960 and 1964 Olympics and won a gold medal in 1960 and a silver in 1964; at both games, he was the Olympic flag bearer for the Soviet Union. During his career, Vlasov won four world titles and set 31 ratified world records. He retired in 1968 and became a prominent writer and later a politician. He was a member of the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union (1989) and then of the Russian State Duma (1993) and took part in the 1996 Russian presidential election.
February 13–17 – A major winter storm kills 58 people in the United States (and 12 in Mexico) and causes over 9,724,000 power outages across 13 states in the Midwest and Southwest, with Southwest Power Pool declaring an "energy emergency".
February 14 – Carlos Menem, 44th President of Argentina, dies at age 90 from complications of urinary tract infection. Ideologically, he identified as a Peronist and supported economically liberal policies. He led Argentina as president during the 1990s and implemented a free market liberalization. Born in Anillaco to a Syrian family, Menem was raised as a Muslim, but later converted to Roman Catholicism to pursue a political career. He was elected senator for La Rioja in 2005. He was the oldest living former Argentine president.
February 15 – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces that Congress will establish a 9/11-styled commission to investigate the January 6 riot at the United States Capitol.
February 16 - Bernard Lown, Lithuanian-American Nobel cardiologist and inventor, dies at age 99 from congestive heart failure and pneumonia. Lown was the original developer of the direct current defibrillator for cardiac resuscitation, and the cardioverter for correcting rapid disordered heart rhythms. He introduced a new use for the drug lidocaine to control heartbeat disturbances. Throughout his medical career, Lown focused on two major medical challenges: the problem of sudden cardiac death, and the role of psychological stress on the cardiovascular system. His investigations led to many medical break-throughs, among them the coronary care unit. His work made possible and safe much of modern cardiac surgery, as well as a host of other innovations. In 1985, Lown accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.
February 16 - Gustavo Noboa, 42nd President of Ecuador, dies at age 83 after suffering a heart attack while in recovery from surgery for a brain tumor. He had the popular support of the country's indigenous people. Noboa's presidency was marked by attempts to revive the Ecuadorian economy, which was in a recession at the time, including the freeing of $400 million worth of assets frozen by the previous government. Noboa's presidency became notable for restoring the country's economy.
February 17 - The former Trump Plaza hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey is demolished in a controlled implosion. In early August 2014, Donald Trump filed a lawsuit requesting his name be removed from the facility, because it had fallen into disrepair, in violation of the licensing agreement for his name. Trump Plaza closed permanently on September 16, 2014.
February 17 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves the Patient Specific Talus Spacer 3D-printed talus implant for humanitarian use. The Patient Specific Talus Spacer is the first in the world and first-of-its-kind implant to replace the talus—the bone in the ankle joint.
February 17 – Rush Limbaugh, American radio personality, dies at age 70 from lung cancer. He was best known as the host of The Rush Limbaugh Show, which was nationally syndicated on AM and FM radio stations. Limbaugh became one of the premier conservative voices in the United States during the 1990s and hosted a national television show from 1992 to 1996. He was among the most highly compensated figures in American radio history; in 2018 Forbes listed his earnings at $84.5 million. In December 2019, Talkers Magazine estimated that Limbaugh's show attracted a cumulative weekly audience of 15.5 million listeners to become the most-listened-to radio show in the United States. Limbaugh also wrote seven books; his first two, The Way Things Ought to Be (1992) and See, I Told You So (1993), made The New York Times Best Seller list. Despite being a polarizing figure, he was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame and the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame. During the 2020 State of the Union Address, President Donald Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
February 18 – NASA successfully lands its Perseverance rover on Mars, seven months after launching.
February 18 – A Malaysian court orders Rosmah Mansor, the wife of former Prime Minister Najib Razak to enter defense on all three graft charges.
February 19 – The U.S. officially rejoins the Paris Agreement, 107 days after leaving. However, it has never been approved by the Senate. The United States Constitution provides that the president "shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur" (Article II, section 2).
February 20 – 2020–21 H5N8 outbreak: 7 people test positive for H5N8 bird flu at a poultry farm in southern Russia, becoming the first known human cases.
February 21 – Zlatko Saračević, Croatian handball player and coach, dies at age 59 from cardiac arrest. He competed in the 1988 Summer Olympics for Yugoslavia and in the 1996 Summer Olympics for Croatia.
February 22 - Enabling legislation for New Jersey Public Question 1 is signed into law by governor Phil Murphy, making New Jersey the 14th state to legalize recreational cannabis.
February 22 - The Supreme Court rejects a last-ditch attempt by Donald Trump to shield his financial records, and issues an order requiring his accountants to turn over his tax and other records to prosecutors in New York.
February 1 - Actress Evan Rachel Wood alleges that Marilyn Manson sexually abused and groomed her as a teenager. They were partners from 2006 to 2010 while she was an adult. Four other women make similar claims while Manson denies the allegations.
February 1 - A coup d'état in Myanmar removes Aung San Suu Kyi from power and restores military rule leading to widespread demonstrations across the country.
February 1 - Kosovo officially establishes diplomatic ties with Israel and announces plans to open an embassy in Jerusalem.
February 1 - COVID-19 pandemic: The number of vaccinations administered worldwide exceeds 100 million.
February 1 – Edward Babiuch, 5th Prime Minister of the Polish People's Republic, dies at age 93. He was the longest-lived former Polish prime minister, improving on the record of Adam Jerzy Czartoryski who died at age 91 in 1861.
February 2 - Manson is dropped by his record label, Loma Vista Recordings, and removed from two TV shows: American Gods and Creepshow.
February 2 - 2021 Sunrise, Florida shootout: During the service of a warrant, a suspect kills two FBI agents and injures three others before barricading himself inside his home. He is later found dead, reportedly from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The shootout was the most violent incident in the FBI's history since 1986.
February 2 - The United States Senate votes 50–49 to pass a budget resolution that would allow Democrats to pass President Biden's $1.9 trillion relief package without support from Republicans. Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska missed the vote.
February 2 - Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos steps down after more than 26 years to focus on Blue Origin and names Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy as his successor.
February 2 - 2021 Muskogee shooting: Five children and one adult were shot and killed, and one other adult suffered life-threatening injuries, after a home shooting. The slain adult was the adult brother of the perpetrator.
February 2 – Fausta Morganti, former Captain Regent of San Marino, dies at age 76 from COVID-19. She was one of the first three women elected to the Grand and General Council in 1974.
February 3 – Tony Trabert, American tennis player and commentator, dies at age 90. Trabert was ranked world No. 1 amateur by many sources in 1953. He was the winner of ten Grand Slam titles – five in singles and five in doubles. Until Michael Chang won the French Open in 1989, Trabert was the last American to hoist the championship trophy.
February 4 - The United States House of Representatives votes 230-199 to remove Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) from her assignments on the Education and Labor and Budget committees, following controversial comments made about the mass shootings in Parkland and Sandy Hook, as well as calling for violence towards Democrats, and the support of numerous conspiracy theories such as QAnon.
February 4 - Smartmatic files a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against the Fox Corporation and its cable news hosts Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, and Maria Bartiromo as well as frequent guests and ex-President Donald Trump's former lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who spread false conspiracy theories about them after the 2020 United States presidential election.
February 4 – President Joe Biden announces that the United States will cease providing weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for use in the Yemeni Civil War.
February 4 – Millie Hughes-Fulford, American astronaut and molecular biologist, dies at age 75 of lymphoma. She was a NASA payload specialist who flew aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in June 1991. At the end of its final flight in February 2003, Columbia disintegrated upon reentry, killing the seven-member crew of STS-107 and destroying most of the scientific payloads aboard.
February 5 - The Senate passes a $1.9 trillion budget for COVID-19 relief. The 50-50 tie-breaker vote is broken by Vice President Kamala Harris.
February 5 - U.S. Reps Andrew Clyde (R-GA) and Louie Gohmert (R-TX) are fined $5,000 for refusing to go through the metal detectors outside the House chamber.
February 5 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves Breyanzi to treat large B-cell lymphoma.
February 5 - Christopher Plummer, Canadian actor, dies at age 91 two-and-a-half weeks after a fall that resulted in a blow to the head. His career spanned seven decades, gaining recognition for his performances in film, television, and stage. He made his Broadway debut in 1954 and continued to act in leading roles on stage. Plummer played numerous major historical figures. He is one of the few performers to have received the Triple Crown of Acting, and the only Canadian to accomplish this feat. In 2011, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor at the age of 82 for Beginners (2010), becoming the oldest person to win an acting award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (a distinction he held until being supplanted by 83-year-old Anthony Hopkins in 2021), and he also received an Oscar nomination at the age of 88 for All the Money in the World, making him the oldest person to be nominated in any acting category at the Academy Awards.
February 5 - Leon Spinks, American professional boxer, dies at age 67 from prostate cancer. In only his eighth professional fight, he won the undisputed heavyweight championship in 1978 after defeating Muhammad Ali in a split decision, in what is considered one of the biggest upsets in boxing history. Spinks was later stripped of the WBC title for facing Ali in an unapproved rematch seven months later, which he lost by a unanimous decision. He won gold at the 1976 Summer Olympics; the latter alongside his brother Michael Spinks, who won middleweight gold. Leon served in the United States Marine Corps from 1973 to 1976, rising to the rank of corporal. He was stationed at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and was on the Marine Corps Boxing Team. Spinks also had a brief career as a professional wrestler in the 1990s.
February 6 – George Shultz, American politician, diplomat and economist, dies at age 100. He served in various positions under three different Republican presidents and is one of only two people to have held four different Cabinet-level posts (the other being Elliot Richardson). Shultz played a major role in shaping the foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration. From 1974 to 1982, he was an executive of the Bechtel Group, an engineering and services company. In the 2010s, Shultz was a prominent figure in the scandal of the biotech firm Theranos, continuing to support it as a board member in the face of mounting evidence of fraud. President Joe Biden reacted to Shultz's death by saying, "He was a gentleman of honor and ideas, dedicated to public service and respectful debate, even into his 100th year on Earth. That’s why multiple presidents, of both political parties, sought his counsel. I regret that, as president, I will not be able to benefit from his wisdom, as have so many of my predecessors."
February 7 - The Tampa Bay Buccaneers win Super Bowl LV, defeating the Kansas City Chiefs 31–9, making them the first wildcard team to win the Super Bowl since the 2010 Green Bay Packers and the first to win it in their home stadium.
February 7 - U.S. Rep Ron Wright (R-TX) passes away at the age of 67 after contracting COVID-19, making him the first sitting member of Congress to die of the disease.
February 8 – South Dakota Constitutional Amendment A, which would have legalized recreational cannabis in South Dakota on July 1, is struck down as unconstitutional by judge Christina Klinger on the grounds that it violated the state's single-subject rule for ballot initiatives.
February 8 - Mary Wilson, American singer, dies at age 76 from hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. She gained worldwide recognition as a founding member of The Supremes, the most successful Motown act of the 1960s and the best-charting female group in U.S. chart history, as well as one of the best-selling girl groups of all-time. The trio reached number one on Billboard's Hot 100 with 12 of their singles, ten of which feature Wilson on backing vocals.
February 9 - The second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump begins. He is acquitted four days later, February 13 with a 57–43 vote in the Senate, ten votes short of the required two-thirds majority for conviction. Chief Justice John Roberts refused to participate because he believes impeachment only applies to the current President.
February 9 - COVID-19 drug development: The FDA issues an emergency use authorization (EUA) for bamlanivimab and etesevimab.
February 9 - COVID-19 pandemic: A joint WHO–China investigation into the source of the outbreak concludes. Investigators deem a Wuhan laboratory leak to be "extremely unlikely", with a "natural reservoir" in bats being a more likely origin.
February 9 - The UAE's uncrewed Hope spacecraft becomes the first Arabian mission to successfully enter orbit around Mars. The space probe will study daily and seasonal weather cycles, weather events in the lower atmosphere such as dust storms, and how the weather varies in different regions of the planet. It will also add to knowledge about Mars atmospheric hydrogen and oxygen loss and other possible reasons behind the planet's drastic climate changes.
February 9 – Chick Corea, American jazz keyboardist, dies at age 79 of cancer. His compositions are widely considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis's band in the late 1960s, he participated in the birth of jazz fusion. Corea is considered one of the foremost jazz pianists of the post-John Coltrane era. Corea continued to collaborate frequently while exploring different musical styles throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He won 25 Grammy Awards and was nominated over 60 times. Corea said that Scientology became a profound influence on his musical direction in the early 1970s.
February 10 – Larry Flynt, American porn publisher, dies at age 78 from heart failure. He published the magazine Hustler. Flynt fought several high-profile legal battles involving the First Amendment, and unsuccessfully ran for public office. He once attempted a presidential run as a Republican in 1984. In 2003, Flynt was a candidate in the recall election of California governor Gray Davis. He finished seventh in a field of 135 candidates with 17,458 votes. He was paralyzed from the waist down due to injuries sustained in a 1978 assassination attempt by racist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin. Flynt's daughter, Tonya Flynt-Vega, accused him of sexually abusing her as a child. In the 1998 book, “Hustled: My Journey from Fear to Faith”, Flynt-Vega writes about her father showing her images from Hustler.
February 11 - President Biden terminates the national emergency declaration on the US-Mexico border which President Trump had used to pay for his wall.
February 11 - In Fort Worth, Texas, six people are killed in an accident involving 133 vehicles on Interstate 35W, affected by weather conditions left by a snowstorm system.
February 12 - The United States Senate votes by unanimous consent to award United States Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman the Congressional Gold Medal for keeping rioters away from the Senate chamber during the storming of the United States Capitol.
February 12 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves Cosela as the first therapy in its class to reduce the frequency of chemotherapy-induced bone marrow suppression.
February 13 – Yury Vlasov, Soviet and Russian weightlifter and writer, dies at age 85 of natural causes. He competed at the 1960 and 1964 Olympics and won a gold medal in 1960 and a silver in 1964; at both games, he was the Olympic flag bearer for the Soviet Union. During his career, Vlasov won four world titles and set 31 ratified world records. He retired in 1968 and became a prominent writer and later a politician. He was a member of the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union (1989) and then of the Russian State Duma (1993) and took part in the 1996 Russian presidential election.
February 13–17 – A major winter storm kills 58 people in the United States (and 12 in Mexico) and causes over 9,724,000 power outages across 13 states in the Midwest and Southwest, with Southwest Power Pool declaring an "energy emergency".
February 14 – Carlos Menem, 44th President of Argentina, dies at age 90 from complications of urinary tract infection. Ideologically, he identified as a Peronist and supported economically liberal policies. He led Argentina as president during the 1990s and implemented a free market liberalization. Born in Anillaco to a Syrian family, Menem was raised as a Muslim, but later converted to Roman Catholicism to pursue a political career. He was elected senator for La Rioja in 2005. He was the oldest living former Argentine president.
February 15 – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces that Congress will establish a 9/11-styled commission to investigate the January 6 riot at the United States Capitol.
February 16 - Bernard Lown, Lithuanian-American Nobel cardiologist and inventor, dies at age 99 from congestive heart failure and pneumonia. Lown was the original developer of the direct current defibrillator for cardiac resuscitation, and the cardioverter for correcting rapid disordered heart rhythms. He introduced a new use for the drug lidocaine to control heartbeat disturbances. Throughout his medical career, Lown focused on two major medical challenges: the problem of sudden cardiac death, and the role of psychological stress on the cardiovascular system. His investigations led to many medical break-throughs, among them the coronary care unit. His work made possible and safe much of modern cardiac surgery, as well as a host of other innovations. In 1985, Lown accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.
February 16 - Gustavo Noboa, 42nd President of Ecuador, dies at age 83 after suffering a heart attack while in recovery from surgery for a brain tumor. He had the popular support of the country's indigenous people. Noboa's presidency was marked by attempts to revive the Ecuadorian economy, which was in a recession at the time, including the freeing of $400 million worth of assets frozen by the previous government. Noboa's presidency became notable for restoring the country's economy.
February 17 - The former Trump Plaza hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey is demolished in a controlled implosion. In early August 2014, Donald Trump filed a lawsuit requesting his name be removed from the facility, because it had fallen into disrepair, in violation of the licensing agreement for his name. Trump Plaza closed permanently on September 16, 2014.
February 17 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves the Patient Specific Talus Spacer 3D-printed talus implant for humanitarian use. The Patient Specific Talus Spacer is the first in the world and first-of-its-kind implant to replace the talus—the bone in the ankle joint.
February 17 – Rush Limbaugh, American radio personality, dies at age 70 from lung cancer. He was best known as the host of The Rush Limbaugh Show, which was nationally syndicated on AM and FM radio stations. Limbaugh became one of the premier conservative voices in the United States during the 1990s and hosted a national television show from 1992 to 1996. He was among the most highly compensated figures in American radio history; in 2018 Forbes listed his earnings at $84.5 million. In December 2019, Talkers Magazine estimated that Limbaugh's show attracted a cumulative weekly audience of 15.5 million listeners to become the most-listened-to radio show in the United States. Limbaugh also wrote seven books; his first two, The Way Things Ought to Be (1992) and See, I Told You So (1993), made The New York Times Best Seller list. Despite being a polarizing figure, he was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame and the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame. During the 2020 State of the Union Address, President Donald Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
February 18 – NASA successfully lands its Perseverance rover on Mars, seven months after launching.
February 18 – A Malaysian court orders Rosmah Mansor, the wife of former Prime Minister Najib Razak to enter defense on all three graft charges.
February 19 – The U.S. officially rejoins the Paris Agreement, 107 days after leaving. However, it has never been approved by the Senate. The United States Constitution provides that the president "shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur" (Article II, section 2).
February 20 – 2020–21 H5N8 outbreak: 7 people test positive for H5N8 bird flu at a poultry farm in southern Russia, becoming the first known human cases.
February 21 – Zlatko Saračević, Croatian handball player and coach, dies at age 59 from cardiac arrest. He competed in the 1988 Summer Olympics for Yugoslavia and in the 1996 Summer Olympics for Croatia.
February 22 - Enabling legislation for New Jersey Public Question 1 is signed into law by governor Phil Murphy, making New Jersey the 14th state to legalize recreational cannabis.
February 22 - The Supreme Court rejects a last-ditch attempt by Donald Trump to shield his financial records, and issues an order requiring his accountants to turn over his tax and other records to prosecutors in New York.
February 22 - Dominion Voting Systems sues Mike Lindell for $1.3 billion for defamation, claiming he spread false conspiracy theories about them after the 2020 presidential election.
February 22 - The United States surpasses 500,000 deaths from COVID-19. In response, President Biden orders flags to fly at half-mast for five days.
February 22 - Luca Attanasio, the Italian Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is murdered near Goma.
February 23 - Golf champion Tiger Woods is seriously injured in a car crash, and undergoes surgery at Harbor–UCLA Medical Center.
February 23 - 2021 Cameron, Texas explosion – an 18-wheeler hits a freight train, causing a fire that burns down a nearby structure.
February 24 - Johnson & Johnson's vaccine candidate receives emergency use authorization from the FDA. The single-shot vaccine is 66% effective in combating the virus and can be stored in regular, unspecialized refrigerators.
February 24 – COVID-19 pandemic: the COVAX vaccine-sharing initiative delivers its first vaccines, delivering 600,000 doses for healthcare workers in Ghana.
February 24 - N'Singa Udjuu, First State Commissioner of Zaire, dies at age 86. From 1966 to 1969, he also served as Minister of Justice.
February 25 - The number of vaccines administered in the United States exceeds 50 million.
February 25 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves Amondys 45 for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. This is the first FDA-approved targeted treatment for people with the exon 45 skipping mutation.
February 25 - COVID-19 pandemic: The global death toll from COVID-19 surpasses 2.5 million.
February 25 - The Armenian military calls for prime minister Nikol Pashinyan to resign. Pashinyan accuses the military of attempting a coup d'état.
February 25 - Sir Michael Somare, 1st Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, dies at age 84 from pancreatic cancer. Widely called the "father of the nation", at the time of his death, Somare was also the longest-serving prime minister, having been in office for 17 years over three separate terms: from 1975 to 1980; from 1982 to 1985; and from 2002 to 2011. His political career spanned from 1968 until his retirement in 2017. Besides serving as PM, he was minister of foreign affairs, leader of the opposition and governor of East Sepik Province.
February 26 - Washington's felony drug possession law is struck down as unconstitutional by the Washington Supreme Court, making Washington the 2nd state (after Oregon) to remove criminal penalties for possession of illicit drugs.
February 26 - Representative Paul Gosar and former Representative Steve King attend The America First Political Action Conference, whose organizer is Nick Fuentes.
February 27 - The House of Representatives passes the American Rescue Plan Act, President Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package. It will next be sent to the Senate.
February 27 - Virginia's legislature passes an adult-use cannabis legalization law, though the law (including both retail sales and simple possession) initially did not come into effect until 2024. It is later amended to legalize cannabis possession in Virginia beginning on July 1, 2021, while keeping the original 2024 retail sales start date.
February 27 - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is accused of sexual harassment by a second former aide to the governor Charlotte Bennett after alleging that he harassed her late last spring, during the height of the state's fight against the coronavirus.
February 22 - The United States surpasses 500,000 deaths from COVID-19. In response, President Biden orders flags to fly at half-mast for five days.
February 22 - Luca Attanasio, the Italian Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is murdered near Goma.
February 23 - Golf champion Tiger Woods is seriously injured in a car crash, and undergoes surgery at Harbor–UCLA Medical Center.
February 23 - 2021 Cameron, Texas explosion – an 18-wheeler hits a freight train, causing a fire that burns down a nearby structure.
February 24 - Johnson & Johnson's vaccine candidate receives emergency use authorization from the FDA. The single-shot vaccine is 66% effective in combating the virus and can be stored in regular, unspecialized refrigerators.
February 24 – COVID-19 pandemic: the COVAX vaccine-sharing initiative delivers its first vaccines, delivering 600,000 doses for healthcare workers in Ghana.
February 24 - N'Singa Udjuu, First State Commissioner of Zaire, dies at age 86. From 1966 to 1969, he also served as Minister of Justice.
February 25 - The number of vaccines administered in the United States exceeds 50 million.
February 25 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves Amondys 45 for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. This is the first FDA-approved targeted treatment for people with the exon 45 skipping mutation.
February 25 - COVID-19 pandemic: The global death toll from COVID-19 surpasses 2.5 million.
February 25 - The Armenian military calls for prime minister Nikol Pashinyan to resign. Pashinyan accuses the military of attempting a coup d'état.
February 25 - Sir Michael Somare, 1st Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, dies at age 84 from pancreatic cancer. Widely called the "father of the nation", at the time of his death, Somare was also the longest-serving prime minister, having been in office for 17 years over three separate terms: from 1975 to 1980; from 1982 to 1985; and from 2002 to 2011. His political career spanned from 1968 until his retirement in 2017. Besides serving as PM, he was minister of foreign affairs, leader of the opposition and governor of East Sepik Province.
February 26 - Washington's felony drug possession law is struck down as unconstitutional by the Washington Supreme Court, making Washington the 2nd state (after Oregon) to remove criminal penalties for possession of illicit drugs.
February 26 - Representative Paul Gosar and former Representative Steve King attend The America First Political Action Conference, whose organizer is Nick Fuentes.
February 27 - The House of Representatives passes the American Rescue Plan Act, President Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package. It will next be sent to the Senate.
February 27 - Virginia's legislature passes an adult-use cannabis legalization law, though the law (including both retail sales and simple possession) initially did not come into effect until 2024. It is later amended to legalize cannabis possession in Virginia beginning on July 1, 2021, while keeping the original 2024 retail sales start date.
February 27 - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is accused of sexual harassment by a second former aide to the governor Charlotte Bennett after alleging that he harassed her late last spring, during the height of the state's fight against the coronavirus.
MARCH
March 2 - An SUV originating from Mexico (having entered the United States through a hole in a border fence) and carrying 25 people collided with a semi-trailer truck in Imperial County, California, killing 13 people.
March 2 - Texas Governor Greg Abbott lifts the statewide mask requirement and allows businesses to open at 100% capacity beginning March 10.
March 6 – The Senate passes the American Rescue Plan Act, President Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package.
March 6 – Pope Francis meets with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf, Iraq. It is the first ever meeting between a pope and a grand ayatollah.
March 6 – Lou Ottens, Dutch inventor, dies at age 94. He is best known as the inventor of the cassette tape, and for his work in helping to develop the compact disc. Ottens was employed by Philips for the entirety of his career.
March 7 – Floods in Hawaii leave one missing, destroy six homes, force evacuations, and leave 1,300 without electricity.
March 8 - Missouri Senator Roy Blunt announces he will not run for re-election in 2022. The primary election will be held on August 2, 2022.
March 8 - The trial for Derek Chauvin, a former police officer involved in the murder of George Floyd last May, begins with jury selection.
March 9 - James Levine, American conductor and pianist, dies at age 77. He had Parkinson’s disease, but his personal physician said he died of natural causes. He was music director of the Metropolitan Opera (the "Met") from 1976 to 2016.
March 9 - John Polkinghorne, English theoretical physicist and Anglican priest, dies at age 90. A prominent and leading voice explaining the relationship between science and religion, he was professor of mathematical physics at the University of Cambridge from 1968 to 1979, when he resigned his chair to study for the priesthood, becoming an ordained Anglican priest in 1982. He served as the president of Queens' College, Cambridge, from 1988 until 1996. Polkinghorne was the author of five books on physics and twenty-six on the relationship between science and religion. He was knighted in 1997 and in 2002 received the Templeton Prize, awarded for exceptional contributions to affirming life's spiritual dimension.
March 10 - Michigan surpasses 600,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
March 10 - The United States House of Representatives votes 220–211 to pass the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The stimulus bill was signed into law by President Biden the next day.
March 10 - Attorneys defending Amendment A, which would have legalized cannabis in the state on July 1 before being struck down by a lower court judge, submit their arguments to the South Dakota Supreme Court. An attempt to delay the effective date of South Dakota's medical cannabis law from July 2021 until January 2022 fails due to disagreements between the South Dakota House and Senate on the proposed legislation.
March 10 - Hamed Bakayoko, 11th Prime Minister of Ivory Coast, dies at age 56. He had COVID-19, malaria, and cancer. He had previously served as the country's Minister of New Technologies, Information and Communication, Minister of the Interior and Minister of Defense.
March 10 - Ali Mahdi Muhammad, 4th President of Somalia, dies at age 82 from COVID-19. Muhammad rose to power after a coalition of armed opposition groups, including his own United Somali Congress, deposed longtime President Siad Barre. However, Muhammad was not able to exert his authority beyond parts of the capital, and instead vied for power with other faction leaders in the southern half of the country and with autonomous subnational entities in the north.
March 10 - Manuel Saturnino da Costa, 6th Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau, dies at age 78.
March 12 - The family of George Floyd, the man murdered while in police custody last May, sparking nationwide (and later worldwide) protests against police brutality and systemic racism, settles their lawsuit against the city of Minneapolis for $27 million.
March 12 - The U.S. surpasses 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered.
March 12 – Goodwill Zwelithini, king of the Zulu nation, dies at age 72 from COVID-19 and diabetes. He became King on the passing of his father, King Cyprian Bhekuzulu, in 1968. Prince Israel Mcwayizeni acted as the regent from 1968 to 1971 while the King took refuge in the then Transvaal province of South Africa for three years. After his 21st birthday and his first marriage, Zwelithini was installed as the eighth monarch of the Zulus at a traditional ceremony at Nongoma in 1971, attended by 20,000 people.
March 13 – Indianapolis Police found a woman who had been shot and learned there may be other victims at a different home. Police arrived at the home and found four dead, including a child.
March 13 - Marvelous Marvin Hagler, American boxer, dies at age 66 after experiencing chest pains and difficulty breathing. He competed in boxing from 1973 to 1987 and reigned as the undisputed champion of the middleweight division from 1980 to 1987, making twelve successful title defenses, all but one by knockout. Hagler also holds the highest knockout percentage of all undisputed middleweight champions at 78 percent. His undisputed middleweight championship reign of six years and seven months is the second-longest active reign of the last century. He holds the record for the sixth longest reign as champion in middleweight history. Nicknamed "Marvelous" and annoyed that network announcers often did not refer to him as such, Hagler legally changed his name to "Marvelous Marvin Hagler" in 1982. Many analysts and boxing writers consider Hagler to have one of the most durable chins in boxing history, having been knocked down only once during his entire professional career. The lone knockdown, scored by Juan Roldán of Argentina, is still being disputed.
March 14 – Marvin David Scott III, a man in his mid-20s, died in police custody at a correctional facility in McKinney, Texas. According to the examiner, the cause of death was "fatal acute stress response in an individual with previously diagnosed schizophrenia during restraint struggle with law enforcement."
March 14–15 – A blizzard in Colorado brings over 24.1 inches of snow, passing a record of 23.8 inches set in 1982, to become the fourth largest recorded snowfall in Denver history and the largest since 2003 when the city received 31.8 inches. It also leaves tens of thousands of people without power and some stranded in their cars after roads are closed. In Wyoming, over 31 inches were received in Cheyenne, and 52.5 inches in the Laramie Range.
March 15 – Three people are killed and one injured when a small plane crashes in Pembroke Pines, Florida.
March 15 – Yaphet Kotto, American actor, dies at age 81 near Manila, Philippines. He starred in the NBC television series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999) as Lieutenant Al Giardello. His most well-known films include the science-fiction horror film Alien (1979), the science-fiction action film The Running Man (1987), the James Bond film Live and Let Die (1973), in which he portrayed the main villain Dr. Kananga, and the comedy thriller Midnight Run (1988) opposite Robert De Niro.
March 15 -17 – The Dutch general elections for the House of Representatives of the Netherlands take place.
March 16 - 2021 Atlanta spa shootings – Eight people are killed and one is injured in a trio of shootings at spas in the Metro Atlanta, Georgia area. A suspect is arrested 150 miles south of Atlanta later that day and charged with eight counts of murder and one count of attempted murder two days later, March 18.
March 16 - Four people died after a shooting at a Phoenix home. One man was injured and is expected to survive.
March 16 - Moudud Ahmed, 7th Prime Minister of Bangladesh, dies at age 80 from pulmonary congestion and kidney complications.
March 17 - The IRS announces that the deadline for Tax Day will be postponed to May 17.
March 17 – John Magufuli, 5th President of Tanzania, dies at age 61 from chronic atrial fibrillation and COVID-19. He ran on a platform of reducing government corruption and spending while also investing in Tanzania's industries, but his rule had autocratic tendencies, as seen in restrictions on freedom of speech, restrictions on LGBT rights, and a crackdown on members of the political opposition and civil society groups. Under his presidency, Tanzania experienced one of the strongest economic growths on the continent (6% on average per year according to the IMF) and moved from the category of low-income countries to middle-income countries. Contrary to leaders elsewhere in the world, Magufuli ordered COVID-19 testing to stop and resisted calls to implement public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic in Tanzania. He also expressed distrust of American- and European-developed vaccines, preferring to rely on faith to protect his nation. Magufuli's approach has been characterized as COVID-19 denialism.
March 18–19 – The U.S. and China hold talks in Alaska to discuss relations, with topics ranging from Taiwanese security to Black Lives Matter.
March 19 – North Korea severs diplomatic ties with Malaysia due to its citizens being extradited to the United States to face money-laundering charges. Malaysian authorities order North Korean officials to leave the country in 48 hours.
March 20 – A special election is held in Louisiana's 5th congressional district, vacant since Representative-elect Luke Letlow died on December 29, 2020. Letlow's widow Julia Letlow wins with 67,203 of the 103,616 votes cast (64.86%).
March 20 – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announces his country's withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, the first country to do so. In an official statement, the Turkish Presidency blamed the LGBT community for the withdrawal from the convention, arguing that "the Istanbul Convention, originally intended to promote women’s rights, was hijacked by a group of people attempting to normalize homosexuality – which is incompatible with Turkey’s social and family values. Hence, the decision to withdraw.". That view is shared by conservative groups and officials from Erdoğan's Islamic-oriented ruling party, the AKP, who claim that the agreement is promoting homosexuality, encouraging divorce and undermining what constitutes a "sacred" family in their view.
March 21 – Clashes in Apure between Colombian FARC dissidents and the Venezuelan Armed Forces cause at least eight casualties, as well as displacing 4,000 Venezuelans.
March 21 - Nawal El Saadawi, Egyptian feminist writer, dies at age 89 at a hospital in Cairo. She wrote many books on the subject of women in Islam, paying particular attention to the practice of female genital mutilation in her society. She was described as "the Simone de Beauvoir of the Arab World", and as "Egypt's most radical woman". She was founder and president of the Arab Women's Solidarity Association and co-founder of the Arab Association for Human Rights. She was awarded honorary degrees on three continents. In 2004, she won the North–South Prize from the Council of Europe. In 2005, she won the Inana International Prize in Belgium, and in 2012, the International Peace Bureau awarded her the 2012 Seán MacBride Peace Prize.
March 22 – 2021 Boulder shooting: 10 people are shot dead at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado. It is the third deadliest mass shooting in the state's history, behind the 1999 Columbine High School massacre which left 13 dead and 24 injured, and the 2012 Aurora theater shooting which left 12 dead and 70 injured. A 21-year-old suspect, Ahmad Al Issa, is arrested after being shot in the leg by police.
March 23 - The Israeli general elections take place, the fourth Knesset election in two years.
March 23 - Ever Given, one of the largest container ships in the world, runs aground and obstructs the Suez Canal, disrupting global trade. The ship is freed on March 29.
March 23 – George Segal, American actor, dies at age 87 of complications from bypass surgery. He starred in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Look Who's Talking, Just Shoot Me! and The Goldbergs. He was one of the first American film actors to rise to leading man status with an unchanged Jewish surname, helping pave the way for other major actors of his generation. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and won two Golden Globe Awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance in A Touch of Class. Segal was also an accomplished banjo player. He released three albums and performed with the instrument in several of his acting roles and on late-night television.
March 24 - More than 30 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States.
March 24 – Jessica Walter, American actress, dies at age 80 in her sleep. She appeared in over 170 film, stage and television productions. Her roles included: Unaccompanied Minors, Undercover Grandpa, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Flipper, Mission: Impossible, The Sixth Sense, Columbo, Hawaii Five-O, The New Adventures of Wonder Woman, Dr. Strange, The Love Boat, Miracle on Ice, Knots Landing, Joanie Loves Chachi, Three's a Crowd, Murder, She Wrote, Magnum, P.I., ABC Afterschool Specials, Dinosaurs, Babylon 5, Coach, Law & Order, The Magic School Bus, Poltergeist: The Legacy, Just Shoot Me!, Jack & Jill, Touched by an Angel, Arrested Development, The Land Before Time, Rules of Engagement, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, 90210, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, The Big Bang Theory, NCIS, The Odd Couple, Justice League Action, Harley Quinn, The Vagina Monologues, A Connecticut Yankee, and Steel Magnolias.
March 25 - The Senate votes 92–7 to pass the Paycheck Protection Program Extension Act of 2021, a bill that would extend the Paycheck Protection Program until May 31. President Biden signed the bill into law on March 30.
March 25 - Tornadoes in Alabama kill five people, destroy several homes, and cause thousands of power outages.
March 25 - The North Dakota state senate rejects a bill to legalize recreational cannabis in the state by a 10-37 vote.
March 25 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of vaccinations administered worldwide exceeds 500 million.
March 25 - Beverly Cleary, American author, dies at age 104 at her retirement home, just 18 days from her 105th birthday. One of America's most successful authors, 91 million copies of her books have been sold worldwide since her first book was published in 1950. Some of her best-known characters are Ramona Quimby and Beezus Quimby, Henry Huggins and his dog Ribsy, and Ralph S. Mouse. The majority of Cleary's books are set in the Grant Park neighborhood of northeast Portland, Oregon, where she was raised, and she has been credited as one of the first authors of children's literature to figure emotional realism in the narratives of her characters, often children in middle-class families. Her first children's book was Henry Huggins after a question from a kid when Cleary was a librarian. Cleary won the 1981 National Book Award for Ramona and Her Mother and the 1984 Newbery Medal for Dear Mr. Henshaw. For her lifetime contributions to American literature, she received the National Medal of Arts, recognition as a Library of Congress Living Legend, and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal from the Association for Library Service to Children. The Beverly Cleary School, a public school in Portland, was named after her, and several statues of her most famous characters were erected in Grant Park in 1995.
March 25 - Larry McMurtry, American author, dies at age 84. His work was predominantly set in either the Old West or contemporary Texas. His novels included Horseman, Pass By (1962), The Last Picture Show (1966), and Terms of Endearment (1975), which were adapted into films. Films adapted from McMurtry's works earned 34 Oscar nominations (13 wins). His 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Lonesome Dove, was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations (seven wins). The subsequent three novels in his Lonesome Dove series were adapted as three more miniseries, earning eight more Emmy nominations. McMurtry and cowriter Diana Ossana adapted the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned eight Academy Award nominations with three wins, including McMurtry and Ossana for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2014, McMurtry received the National Humanities Medal.
March 26 - New Jersey amends its alcohol and cannabis laws to allow police to notify parents or guardians after a first-time offense by a minor, following strong opposition to the prohibition on first-time notifications implemented when New Jersey legalized cannabis the previous month.
March 26 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves Abecma to treat multiple myeloma. Abecma is the first cell-based gene therapy approved by the FDA for the treatment of multiple myeloma.
March 28 - A man in Essex, Maryland killed his parents and two others before setting himself on fire. A fifth person was wounded by gunfire but survived.
March 28 – Didier Ratsiraka, 3rd President of Madagascar, dies at age 84 from cardiac arrest and a flu. At the time of his death, he was the longest-serving President of Madagascar. After the 2001 election, he and his opponent Marc Ravalomanana engaged in a lengthy standoff after the latter refused to participate in a runoff election; Ratsiraka eventually stepped down.
March 29 - In Minnesota, opening statements begin at the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, who is accused of murdering 46-year-old black man George Floyd by kneeling on his neck.
March 29 - The Arkansas Senate passed, HB1570, a bill that prohibited normally functioning and physically healthy minors from puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and genital and non-genital invasive surgical alterations.
March 29 - A judge orders three men charged with plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer to stand trial, after a three-day preliminary hearing. Threat of terrorism charges are also dismissed against two of the defendants.
March 29 - Killing of Adam Toledo – A 13-year-old Latino boy, Adam Toledo, is shot and killed by an officer of the Chicago Police Department. Officer Eric Stillman shot at the boy less than a second after he dropped a gun. The handgun recovered at the scene by investigators was a 9mm semi-automatic pistol with an empty magazine. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot strongly implied that he was involved in a gang. Teachers at Mariano Azuela Elementary School flagged a change in his behavior over the past couple of years, when he wore an earring to school, shaved his eyebrow, and cut a gun out of a piece of paper.
March 29 – Bashkim Fino, 29th Prime Minister of Albania, dies at age 58 from Leukemia and COVID-19. On March 11, 1997, Democratic Party President Sali Berisha appointed Fino, a member of the opposition Socialist Party of Albania, Prime Minister in order to lead a government of national unity. This came after rebellion broke out over the collapse of several pyramid schemes leading to the government losing control of much of the country. Fino was Prime Minister through the 1997 elections where his Socialist Party won a large majority before he stepped down and was succeeded by his party leader Fatos Nano.
March 30 – Both houses of the New York State Legislature pass a bill to legalize recreational cannabis in New York, which, upon being signed by governor Andrew Cuomo the following day, made New York the 15th state to legalize recreational cannabis.
March 31 - 2021 Orange, California office shooting – Four people are killed and two others, including the suspect, are injured in a shooting at an office building.
March 31 - President Biden unveils a $2 trillion infrastructure plan.
March 31 - Governor Greg Gianforte signs a bill that bans Sanctuary cities in the state of Montana into law. Montana becomes the 13th state to ban sanctuary cities.
March 31 – Kamal Ganzouri, 46th Prime Minister of Egypt, dies at age 88.
APRIL
April 1 – Isamu Akasaki, Japanese Nobel physicist, dies at age 92 of pneumonia. He is best known for inventing the bright gallium nitride (GaN) p-n junction blue LED in 1989 and subsequently the high-brightness GaN blue LED as well. For this and other achievements, Akasaki was awarded the Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology in 2009, and the IEEE Edison Medal in 2011. He was also awarded the 2014 Nobel prize in Physics, together with Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura, "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes, which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources". In 2021, Akasaki, along with Shuji Nakamura, Nick Holonyak, M. George Craford and Russell D. Dupuis were awarded the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering "for the creation and development of LED lighting, which forms the basis of all solid state lighting technology".
April 2 - April 2021 United States Capitol car attack: The Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. is placed under lockdown after a suspect rams a car into a barricade on Constitution Avenue and exits the vehicle holding a knife. Two police officers are injured in the attack and taken to a hospital, where one dies from his injuries. The suspect is killed by Capitol Police.
April 2 - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that over 100 million people have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
April 2 – Russia warns NATO against sending any troops to aid Ukraine, amid reports of a large Russian military build-up on its borders.
April 4 - The 2021 Bulgarian parliamentary election takes place.
April 4 - More than 270 people are killed in Indonesia and East Timor after Cyclone Seroja strikes East Nusa Tenggara and the island of Timor.
April 4 – Robert Mundell, Canadian Nobel economist, dies at age 88 in Tuscany, Italy of bile duct cancer. He was a professor of economics at Columbia University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Mundell is known as the "father" of the euro, as he laid the groundwork for its introduction through this work and helped to start the movement known as supply-side economics.
April 5 - Two brothers are suspected to have made a suicide pact before they shot and killed four family members and then fatally shot themselves in a suburban home in Allen, Texas.
April 5 - Paul Ritter, British actor, dies at age 54 of a brain tumor. His roles included: Son of Rambow, Hannibal Rising, Quantum of Solace, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Great Expectations, Henry IV, Part II, Henry V, Inferno, Chernobyl, Catherine the Great, and Operation Mincemeat.
April 6 - President Biden announces that the deadline for all states to make all adults eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine will be moved up from May 1 to April 19.
April 6 - The state of Arkansas becomes the first state to ban surgery, hormones and puberty blockers for transgender youths.
April 7 - Oklahoma surpasses 8,000 deaths from COVID-19.
April 7 - 2021 Rock Hill shooting – Six people are killed by gunshots at a house in Rock Hill, South Carolina. The shooter, former NFL cornerback Phillip Adams, later committed suicide.
April 9 - President Biden requests Congress to authorize a $1.5 trillion federal spending plan in 2022, which includes an emphasis on public health, as well as major increase in science and research funding.
April 9 - The U.S. House Ethics Committee announces that they have opened an investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz (R - FL) over sexual misconducts and federal sex-trafficking.
April 9 - During his show, Tucker Carlson argued that the Democratic Party "is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World". He also said, "Everyone wants to make a racial issue out of it, 'Ooh, the white replacement theory.' No, no, no, this is a voting rights question. I have less political power because they are importing a brand-new electorate. Why should I sit back and take that?" The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and others said that Carlson was endorsing the Great Replacement, a white nationalist conspiracy theory that claims white people are being systemically replaced through declining white birth rates and high rates of immigration. In an open letter to Fox News, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt called for the network to fire Carlson.
April 9 – Roscosmos launches the Soyuz MS-18 mission, carrying three Expedition 65 crewmembers to the International Space Station.
April 9 - DMX, American rapper, songwriter and actor, dies at age 50 from a cocaine-induced heart attack. His name was Earl Simmons. He began rapping in the early 1990s and released his debut album It's Dark and Hell Is Hot in 1998, to both critical acclaim and commercial success, selling 251,000 copies within its first week of release. DMX released his best-selling album, ... And Then There Was X, in 1999, which included the hit single "Party Up (Up in Here)". His 2003 singles "Where the Hood At?" and "X Gon' Give It to Ya" were also commercially successful. He was the first artist to debut an album at No. 1 five times in a row on the Billboard 200 charts. Overall, DMX sold over 74 million records worldwide. DMX was featured in films such as Belly, Romeo Must Die, Exit Wounds, Cradle 2 the Grave, and Last Hour. In 2006, he starred in the reality television series DMX: Soul of a Man, which was primarily aired on the BET cable television network. In 2003, he published a book of his memoirs entitled E.A.R.L.: The Autobiography of DMX.
April 9 - Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, dies at age 99, two months before his 100th birthday. He was the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. He was the consort of the British monarch from Elizabeth's accession in 1952 until his death in 2021, making him the longest-serving royal consort in history. Philip was born in Greece, into the Greek and Danish royal families; his family was exiled from the country when he was eighteen months old. After being educated in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, he joined the Royal Navy in 1939, when he was 18 years old. In July 1939, he began corresponding with the 13-year-old Princess Elizabeth, the elder daughter and heir presumptive of King George VI. Philip had first met her in 1934. During the Second World War, he served with distinction in the British Mediterranean and Pacific fleets.
April 11 - Killing of Daunte Wright – A police officer in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis, killed a black man during an attempted arrest following a traffic stop, leading to rioting and looting in the city in the subsequent days. The protests later spread to the surrounding area and other cities and states, as far away as Portland, Oregon. The suspect, Officer Kim Potter, later resigned and was charged with second-degree manslaughter.
April 11 - California surpasses 60,000 deaths from COVID-19.
April 11 - Peru holds a general election with Pedro Castillo and the left-wing Free Peru party winning an incredibly close election.
April 11 - Iran accuses Israel of "nuclear terrorism" and vows revenge after a large explosion destroys the internal power system of the Natanz uranium enrichment plant.
April 11 - Hideki Matsuyama wins the 2021 Masters Tournament, becoming the first man from Japan to win a major golf championship.
April 12 - COVID-19 drug development – The U.S. government terminates a deal with Eli Lilly & Co. for 350,856 remaining doses of the single antibody bamlanivimab that were scheduled to be delivered by the end of March. The deal will instead be focused on a supply of combined antibodies with etesevimab.
April 12 - Microsoft announces the $20 billion acquisition of AI firm Nuance Communications, the second largest deal in its history, after LinkedIn in 2016.
April 13 - Japan's government approves the dumping of radioactive water of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean over the course of 30 years, with full support of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The decision is opposed by China, South Korea, and Taiwan.
April 13 - The Janssen COVID-19 vaccine is paused over causing rare blood clots.
April 14 - Yıldırım Akbulut, 20th Prime Minister of Turkey, dies at age 85. Turgut Özal chose Akbulut as his successor as Prime Minister, leading him to be elected ANAP leader and taking office as the 20th Prime Minister of Turkey. He was widely regarded as a 'puppet' of President Özal, who was accused despite his ceremonial and impartial position of calling the shots for the government. He was defeated in the 1991 ANAP leadership primaries by Mesut Yılmaz and subsequently left office. In 1999, he was elected for a second time as Speaker of Parliament. To this date in Turkish politics, 'Yıldırım Akbulut' has become synonymous with 'political puppet', denoting a politician stationed in high office but actually only serving on behalf of another, more powerful superior. When serving Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was elected President in 2014, the media ran speculation about who would be Erdoğan's 'Yıldırım Akbulut' (replacement prime minister on Erdoğan's behalf).
April 14 - Bernie Madoff, American investment advisor, financier and convicted fraudster, dies at age 82 after suffering from chronic kidney disease. He ran the largest Ponzi scheme in history, worth about $64.8 billion. He was at one time chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange. He advanced the proliferation of electronic trading platforms and the concept of payment for order flow, which has been described as a "legal kickback". Madoff founded a penny stock brokerage in 1960, which eventually grew into Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. He served as the company's chairman until his arrest on December 11, 2008. That year, the firm was the 6th largest market maker in S&P 500 stocks. Madoff had 4,800 clients and ignoring opportunity costs and taxes paid on fictitious profits, about half of Madoff's direct investors lost no money.
April 15 - Indianapolis FedEx shooting: Nine people are killed, including the shooter, and seven injured, in a mass shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis.
April 15 – Scientists announce they successfully injected human stem cells into the embryos of monkeys, creating chimera-embryos.
April 16 - COVID-19 drug development: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revokes the emergency use authorization (EUA) for bamlanivimab.
April 16 - Michigan extends their restrictions on gatherings and dining to May 24 amid a rise of cases. The state also expands their mask mandate to children ages 2–4 years.
April 16 - The number of vaccines administered in the United States exceeds 200 million.
April 16 - Charles Geschke, American businessman and computer scientist, dies at age 81 from cancer. He was best known for founding the graphics and publishing software company Adobe Inc. with John Warnock in 1982, and co-creating the PDF document format with Warnock.
April 16 - Helen McCrory, English actress, dies at age 52 of breast cancer. Her roles included: Interview with the Vampire, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Queen, Becoming Jane, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, Hugo, Skyfall, Loving Vincent, Anna Karenina, Dickens, Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking, Frankenstein, Doctor Who, Phineas and Ferb, Penny Dreadful, His Dark Materials, The Importance of Being Earnest, Macbeth, Pride and Prejudice, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, and Medea.
April 16 - Andrew Peacock, Australian politician, dies at age 82 in Austin, Texas. He served as a cabinet minister and went on to become leader of the Liberal Party on two occasions (1983–1985 and 1989–1990), leading the party to defeat at the 1984 and 1990 elections. Peacock left politics in 1994 and was later appointed Ambassador to the United States, serving from 1997 to 1999.
April 17 - The global death toll from COVID-19 surpasses 3 million.
April 17 - The Czech government concludes that the Russian GRU was responsible for the blast of two ammo warehouses in Vrbětice in 2014. 18 Russian diplomats and alleged spies are subsequently expelled.
April 17 - The Soyuz MS-17 mission concludes, returning three crewmembers of Expedition 64 to Earth from the International Space Station.
April 18 – COVID-19 vaccination: The CDC reports that over 50% of Americans have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. At least 130 million adults have received the first dose, while 84 million adults have also received the second dose.
April 18 - Twelve soccer clubs, including three from La Liga and leading clubs from the Premier League and Serie A, agree to join a new breakaway European Super League, prompting international condemnation. Two days later, following major protests from supporters, other clubs and politicians, Manchester City withdraws from the league; this prompts all the remaining Premier League clubs and three others to do the same.
April 18 - The 2021 Cape Verdean parliamentary election takes place.
April 19 - NASA's Ingenuity helicopter, part of the Mars 2020 mission, performs the first powered flight on another planet in history.
April 19 - Raúl Castro resigns as First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party, ending more than 62 years of rule by the Castro brothers in Cuba.
April 19 - Walter Mondale, 42nd Vice President of the United States, dies at age 93 from natural causes. At the time of his death, Mondale was the oldest living former U.S. vice president. Now it is the 81-year-old Dick Cheney. He served from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. A U.S. senator from Minnesota from 1964 to 1976, he was the Democratic Party's nominee in the 1984 presidential election, but lost to incumbent Ronald Reagan in an Electoral College and popular vote landslide. Reagan won 49 states while Mondale carried his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia. His vice-presidential nominee, U.S. Representative Geraldine Ferraro from New York, was the first female vice-presidential nominee of any major party in U.S. history. President Bill Clinton appointed Mondale U.S. Ambassador to Japan in 1993; he retired from that post in 1996. In 2002, Mondale became the last-minute choice of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party to run for Senate after Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash less than two weeks before the election. Mondale narrowly lost the race to Saint Paul mayor Norm Coleman. Mondale later took up a part-time teaching position at the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
April 19 - Jim Steinman, American rock lyricist and composer, dies at age 73 from aspiration pneumonia. His work included songs in the adult contemporary, rock, dance, pop, musical theater, and film score genres. He is most known for working with Meat Loaf, Celine Dion and Bonnie Tyler.
April 20 - Derek Chauvin is found guilty on all counts in the murder of George Floyd.
April 20 - Killing of Ma'Khia Bryant: A 16-year-old in Columbus, Ohio is shot and killed by police officer, Nicholas Reardon. Bryant was brandishing a knife and charging two women consecutively, leading up to the moment Officer Reardon fired four shots.
April 20 – Idriss Déby, President of Chad, is killed in clashes with rebel forces after 30 years in office. The constitution is suspended and a Transitional Military Council is established to govern the country for 18 months.
April 21 - Michigan surpasses 800,000 confirmed cases and 17,000 confirmed deaths.
April 21 – COVID-19 pandemic: With global case numbers approaching a second peak, India reports 315,000 infections within 24 hours, the highest one-day tally recorded anywhere in the world to date.
April 22 – President Biden pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 compared to 2005 levels.
April 23 - SpaceX launches the Crew-2 mission, carrying four crew members of Expedition 65 and 66 to the International Space Station aboard Crew Dragon Endeavour.
April 23 - UEFA announces that due to a lack of guarantees regarding spectators caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland would be removed as a tournament host for the UEFA Euro 2020.
April 24 - A runoff election is held in Louisiana's 2nd congressional district vacant since Representative Cedric Richmond resigned to become the Director of the Office of Public Liaison and an advisor to President Biden. Troy Carter wins with 48,511 of the 87,806 votes cast (55.25%).
April 24 - A viral Internet meme encourages users named Josh Swain to compete at an event in Lincoln, Nebraska and battle for the right to use the name Josh Swain. The event draws a crowd of several hundred people, and raises over $8,000 in charity.
April 24 - Following an international search and rescue effort, the Indonesian navy reports the sinking of KRI Nanggala with 53 crew members, the largest loss of life aboard a submarine since 2003.
April 24 - COVID-19 pandemic: The number of vaccinations administered worldwide exceeds 1 billion. Half of these doses have been administered in just three countries (the United States, China and India).
April 25 – The 93rd Academy Awards, the third in a row with no official host, are held at both Union Station and Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Due to the ceremony's delay from February 28 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema, films from two calendar years were eligible at the same point, with the cut-off date being the intended original Awards date. Chloé Zhao's Nomadland wins three awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Frances McDormand for Best Actress. David Fincher's Mank leads the nominations with ten, while Anthony Hopkins wins Best Actor for The Father (becoming the oldest winner in an acting category), Daniel Kaluuya Best Supporting Actor for Judas and the Black Messiah and Youn Yuh-jung Best Supporting Actress for Minari. Keeping in line with other award ceremonies reporting viewership declines, the telecast garners 10.4 million viewers according to Nielsen estimates, down 56% from the previous year and making the broadcast by far the lowest-rated in Oscar history.
April 25 – Albania holds parliamentary elections.
April 26 - The CDC says that fully vaccinated Americans can go outside without wearing a mask unless they are in large crowds.
April 26 – Tamara Press, Soviet Olympic shot put and discus thrower, dies at age 83. She won three gold medals and one silver medal at the 1960 and 1964 Olympics and three European titles in 1958–1962. Between 1959 and 1965 she set 11 world records: five in the shot put and six in the discus. She also held 16 national titles, nine in the shot put (1958–66) and seven in the discus (1960–66). Her younger sister, Irina Press, was also a prominent track athlete, mostly in the sprint events. Their father died fighting in World War II in 1942 and they moved to Samarkand with their mother, where they started training in athletics. Both sisters were accused of being either secretly male or intersex. They retired in 1966, just before sex verification became mandatory on location. In 1942 wartime Soviet evacuation records Tamara Press, then aged 5, is documented as a girl. In retirement Press worked as an athletics coach and official in Moscow. She wrote several books on sport, social and economic subjects. In 1974 she defended a PhD in pedagogy. She was awarded the Order of Lenin (1960), Order of the Badge of Honour (1964) and Order of Friendship (1997).
April 27 - Colorado surpasses 500,000 cases of COVID-19.
April 28 - 2021 Joe Biden speech to a joint session of Congress: On the eve of his 100th day in office, President Biden gives his first address to a joint session of Congress encouraging them to pass $4 trillion worth of spending bills, including the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan, both part of his Build Back Better Plan.
April 28 - The South Dakota Supreme Court hears oral arguments on an appeal of a ruling which struck down South Dakota Amendment A, which would have legalized recreational cannabis in the state on July 1, 2021.
April 28 - Two deputies were killed and three other people including a suspected gunman were found dead after a standoff in Boone, North Carolina.
April 28 - At least 55 people are killed and nearly 50,000 more are displaced in one of the most serious clashes in Central Asia following border disputes between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
April 28 - The European Union approves the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, governing the relationship between the EU and UK after Brexit.
April 28 - Protestors rally in major Colombian cities against increased taxes and healthcare reforms proposed by President Iván Duque Márquez, resulting in police violence and the deaths of dozens of protestors, which is condemned by the United Nations and Human Rights Watch.
April 28 - Michael Collins, American astronaut, dies at age 90 of cancer. He flew the Apollo 11 command module Columbia around the Moon in 1969 while his crewmates, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, made the first crewed landing on the surface. He was also a test pilot and major general in the U.S. Air Force Reserves. Collins flew in space twice; his first spaceflight was on Gemini 10 in 1966, in which he and Command Pilot John Young performed orbital rendezvous with two spacecraft and undertook two extravehicular activities (EVAs, also known as spacewalks). On the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, he became one of 24 people to fly to the Moon, which he orbited thirty times. He was the fourth person (and third American) to perform a spacewalk, the first person to have performed more than one spacewalk, and, after Young, who flew the command module on Apollo 10, the second person to orbit the Moon alone. After retiring from NASA in 1970, Collins took a job in the Department of State as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. A year later, he became the director of the National Air and Space Museum, and held this position until 1978, when he stepped down to become undersecretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1980, he took a job as vice president of LTV Aerospace. He resigned in 1985 to start his own consulting firm. Along with his Apollo 11 crewmates, Collins was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2011.
April 28 - Federico Salas, 136th Prime Minister of Peru, dies at age 70 from COVID-19.
April 29 - The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases exceeds 150 million worldwide.
April 29 - The China National Space Administration launches the first module of its Tiangong space station, named Tianhe, beginning a two-year effort to build the station in orbit.
April 30 - The White House announces the U.S. will begin restricting travel from India starting May 4 due to rising cases of the Lineage B.1.617 which originated in the latter country.
MAY
May 1 – Lubbock, Texas votes to become the largest city in U.S. to ban abortion with the "sanctuary city for the unborn". According to the 2020 Census, it has a population of 258,870.
May 1 – Olympia Dukakis, American actress, dies at age 89 under hospice care at her home in Manhattan after a period of ill health. She performed in more than 130 stage productions, more than 60 films and in 50 television series. Best known as a screen actress, she started her career in theater. Not long after her arrival in New York City, she won an Obie Award for Best Actress in 1963 for her off-Broadway performance in Bertolt Brecht's Man Equals Man. She later moved to film acting and won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe, among other accolades, for her performance in Moonstruck (1987). She received another Golden Globe nomination for Sinatra (1992) and Emmy Award nominations for Lucky Day (1991), More Tales of the City (1998) and Joan of Arc (1999). Dukakis's autobiography, Ask Me Again Tomorrow: A Life in Progress, was published in 2003. In 2018, a feature-length documentary about her life, titled Olympia, was released theatrically in the United States.
May 2 – The SpaceX Crew-1 mission ends, returning four crew members of Expedition 64 and 65 to Earth from the International Space Station aboard Crew Dragon Resilience.
May 3 – Lloyd Price, American singer-songwriter and businessman, dies at age 88 from diabetes complications at a long-term care facility in New York. He was known as "Mr. Personality", after his 1959 million-selling hit, "Personality". His first recording, "Lawdy Miss Clawdy", was a hit for Specialty Records in 1952. He continued to release records, but none were as popular until several years later, when he refined the New Orleans beat and achieved a series of national hits. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
May 4 - Michigan relaxes several restrictions regarding face mask requirements and outdoor gatherings.
May 4 – Simon Achidi Achu, 6th Prime Minister of Cameroon, dies at age 86 in the United States from an illness.
May 5 – South Carolina House votes to add firing squad to execution methods; South Carolina would become the fourth state to use firing squad after Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah.
May 5 – SpaceX successfully flies, lands, and recovers a Starship prototype for the first time, after four unsuccessful previous attempts.
May 6 - Kentaro Miura, Japanese manga artist, dies at age 54 due to acute aortic dissection. He was best known for his acclaimed dark fantasy series Berserk, which began serialization in 1989 and continued until his death. As of 2021, Berserk had more than 50 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. In 2002, Miura received the Award for Excellence at the 6th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prizes.
May 7 - Colonial Pipeline cyberattack: An oil pipeline in Houston is hacked by DarkSide causing the pipeline operator to shut down its entire network, the source of nearly half of the U.S. East Coast’s fuel supply.
May 7 - Pfizer/BioNTech seek full approval from the FDA for the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
May 7 – The World Health Organization gives emergency use listing to the Sinopharm BIBP COVID-19 vaccine, the first non–Western vaccine to be authorized.
May 7 - Hubert Hughes, 5th and 7th Premier of Anguilla, dies at age 87. He had stated his intention to lead the island to separation from the United Kingdom. This is despite the fact that European Union assistance funds, and visa-free entry to the US, Canada, EU and islands in the French and Dutch Caribbean such as Saint Martin would stop.
May 8 - Lee Han-dong, 33rd Prime Minister of South Korea, dies at age 86.
May 8 - Helmut Jahn, German-born American architect, dies at age 81 while riding his bicycle. His projects included: the Sony Center on the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, Germany; the Messeturm in Frankfurt, Germany; the Thompson Center in Chicago; One Liberty Place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (formerly the tallest building in Philadelphia); Suvarnabhumi Airport, in Bangkok, Thailand, 50 West Street, a residential tower in New York City in 2016, and the ThyssenKrupp Test Tower in Rottweil, Germany in 2017.
May 8 - Spencer Silver, American chemist and inventor, dies at age 80 from ventricular tachycardia. 3M credits him with having devised the adhesive that Art Fry used to create Post-it Notes.
May 9 – 2021 Colorado Springs shooting: Seven people are shot dead at a birthday party in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
May 10 - The FDA authorizes the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for adolescents aged 12–15 years old.
May 11 – The Colonial Pipeline shutdown enters its fifth day. Panic buying by motorists causes many eastern seaboard gas stations to begin running dry. U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm urges calm and to not hoard.
May 11 – 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis: Israel hits the Gaza Strip with airstrikes as Hamas increases rocket fire. This occurred after Israel began displacing Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
May 11 – Norman Lloyd, American actor, producer and director, dies at age 106 in his sleep at his home. He worked in every major facet of the industry including theatre, radio, television, and film, with a career that started in 1923. His credits included: Dead Poets Society, The Age of Innocence, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin, Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles, Trainwreck, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, General Electric Theater, Kojak, Murder, She Wrote, The Twilight Zone, Amityville: The Evil Escapes, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Modern Family, Journey to the Unknown, Columbo, and Tales of the Unexpected.
May 12 - Colonial Pipeline begins restarting, but warns that it will take several days for things to return to normal operations.
May 12 - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) adopts the FDA recommendation to provide the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine to adolescents aged 12–15 years old.
May 13 – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that all "fully vaccinated people can resume activities without wearing a mask or physically distancing, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance".
May 14 - Colonial Pipeline operations return to normal late in the day, but gas outages at retail stations will take several days to clear.
May 14 - Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signs public school "bathroom bill", HB1233, into law. The bill specifies that schools must comply to reasonable requests made by students and staff to provide them with access to a reasonably private bathroom that is restricted to occupants of their same sex.
May 14 – The China National Space Administration lands its Zhurong rover at Utopia Planitia on Mars, making China the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the planet and only the second to land a rover.
May 15 – Fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants continues to escalate, as the death toll exceeds 150. An Israeli airstrike destroys a high-rise office building in Gaza occupied by Associated Press, Al Jazeera, and other media outlets.
May 17 - Former Matt Gaetz associate Joel Greenberg pleads guilty to six charges of sex trafficking.
May 17 - The U.S. Supreme Court agrees to take up Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, a Mississippi case on abortion rights.
May 17 – Discovery, Inc. agrees to buy media conglomerate WarnerMedia and all of its subsidiaries, from AT&T for $43 billion. The merger is set to be complete the following year.
May 18 - Charles Grodin, American actor and comedian, dies at age 86 from bone marrow cancer. His roles included: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Rosemary's Baby, Catch-22, The Heartbreak Kid, King Kong, Heaven Can Wait, The Incredible Shrinking Woman, The Great Muppet Caper, You Can't Hurry Love, Midnight Run, Taking Care of Business, Beethoven, Dave, So I Married an Axe Murderer, Heart and Souls, Beethoven's 2nd, My Summer Story, The Ex, Have Gun – Will Travel, Shane, The Virginian, Simon and Garfunkel: Songs of America, Saturday Night Live, Laverne & Shirley, The Magical World of Disney, 60 Minutes II, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Michael J. Fox Show, Madoff, and The New Yorker Presents.
May 18–22 – The Eurovision Song Contest 2021 is held in Rotterdam, Netherlands, after the cancellation of the 2020 contest due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 contest is won by Italian entrants Måneskin with the song "Zitti e buoni", meaning Shut Up and Behave.
May 19 – Lee Evans, American Olympic athlete, dies at age 74 in Nigeria from a stroke. He won two gold medals in the 1968 Summer Olympics, setting world records in the 400 meters and the 4 × 400 meters relay, both of which stood for 20 and 24 years respectively. Evans co-founded the Olympic Project for Human Rights and was part of the athlete's boycott and the Black Power movement.
May 20 – Following international pressure, and nearly 250 deaths, Israel agrees to a ceasefire deal to end the conflict with Gaza militants, effective the next day at 2:00 am local time.
May 20 - Abubakar Shekau, Nigerian Islamic leader and militant, died by detonating a suicide vest. His birth year is unknown and he was anywhere from age 46 to age 56. He was a Kanuri man known as the leader of Boko Haram. He served as deputy leader to the group's founder, Mohammed Yusuf, until Yusuf was executed in 2009. In March 2015, Shekau pledged allegiance to ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Shekau was a Salafi, until 2016, when he ended his relation to ISIL. He allegedly had a photographic memory.
May 22 - Robert Marchand, French racing cyclist, dies at age 109. He was the holder of the world record for cycling 100 km and for the distance cycled in one hour, in both the 100–105 and over-105 years old age categories.
May 22 - Yuan Longping, Chinese agronomist, dies at age 90 of multiple organ failure. He was a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering known for developing the first hybrid rice varieties in the 1970s, part of the Green Revolution in agriculture. For his contributions, Yuan is known as the "Father of Hybrid Rice". It has been grown in dozens of countries in Africa, America, and Asia—boosting food security and providing a robust food source in areas with a high risk of famine.
May 23 – Ryanair Flight 4978 is forced to land by Belarusian authorities to detain dissident journalist Roman Protasevich.
May 23 - Eric Carle, American children's writer and illustrator, dies at age 91 from kidney failure, a few weeks before his 92nd birthday. His picture book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, first published in 1969, has been translated into more than 66 languages and sold more than 50 million copies. His career as an illustrator and children's book author took off after he collaborated on Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?. He illustrated more than 70 books, most of which he also wrote, and more than 145 million copies of his books have been sold around the world.
May 23 - Ron Hill, English marathon runner, dies at age 82. He was the second man to break 2:10 in the marathon; he set world records at four other distances, but never laid claim to the marathon world record. He ran two Olympic Marathons (Tokyo 1964 and Munich 1972), and achieved a personal marathon record of 2:09:28. In 1970, Hill won the 74th Boston Marathon in a course record 2:10:30. He also won gold medals for the marathon at the European Championships in 1969 and the Commonwealth Games in 1970. Hill laid claim to the longest streak of consecutive days running – every day for 52 years and 39 days from 1964 to 2017.
May 24 - The State Department tells Americans not to travel to Japan due to a spike in COVID-19 cases there.
May 24 - A suspicious package is sent to the home of U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY). The incident is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and United States Capitol Police.
May 24 - At least four people were killed in a shooting at an apartment complex in West Jefferson, Ohio.
May 24 – A coup d'état in Mali removes interim President Bah Ndaw and the acting Prime Minister, Moctar Ouane, from power and restores military rule, leading to the country being suspended from the Economic Community of West African States and the African Union, as well as France suspending its military operations in the country.
May 25 - New York City Mayoral candidate Shaun Donovan is arrested during a protest near the Holland Tunnel.
May 25 - Protests break out across the country to mark the first anniversary of the murder of George Floyd.
May 25 - Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. announces that he has convened a grand jury in his criminal investigation into former President Trump over his real estate business, as well as the Trump Organization.
May 25 - The CDC announces that 50% of the American adult population has been fully vaccinated.
May 25 - COVID-19 vaccines – Moderna says that their vaccine is 100% effective in teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 years old. They say that they will seek approval from the FDA in early June.
May 25 - Michigan surpasses 19,000 confirmed deaths from COVID-19.
May 26 – 2021 San Jose shooting: A mass shooting occurs at a Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority rail yard in San Jose, California, leaving ten people dead, including the gunman who committed suicide.
May 26 - Shell becomes the first company to be legally mandated to align its carbon emissions with the Paris climate accord, following a landmark court ruling in the Netherlands.
May 26 - The 2021 Syrian presidential election is held. Dictator Bashar al-Assad receives 95% of the votes.
May 27 – The Department of Energy launches Perlmutter, the world's fastest AI-specialized supercomputer, with four exaflops of performance.
May 27 - Poul Schlüter, 22nd Prime Minister of Denmark, dies at age 92. He was the first member of the Conservative People's Party to become Prime Minister, as well as the first conservative to hold the office since 1901. Schlüter was a member of the Folketing (Danish parliament) for the Conservative People's Party from 1964 to 1994. He was also Chairman of the Conservative People's Party from 1974 to 1977 and from 1981 to 1993.
May 30 - 2021 Hialeah shooting: A shooting in Hialeah, Florida leaves two dead and 20 injured.
May 30 - JBS S.A. cyberattack: A ransomware cyberattack hits several beef processing plants and slaughterhouses in Utah, Texas, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania. Russian firm REvil has been accused of being the perpetrators of the attack.
May 30 – Rick Mitchell, Australian sprinter, dies at age 66 from prostate cancer. He was a triple Olympian who competed in the 400 meters and 4 × 400 meters relay. Mitchell won a silver medal at the 1980 Summer Olympics, and also won one gold, two silver medals, and one bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in 1978 and 1982.
JUNE
June 1 - A firefighter is killed and another injured in a shooting at a Los Angeles County Fire Department station in Santa Clarita.
June 1 - A special election is held in New Mexico to fill a vacancy in its 1st congressional district left by Deb Haaland when she resigned to become President Biden's Secretary of the Interior. Democrat Melanie Stansbury wins with 79,837 of the 132,262 votes cast (60.36%).
June 1 - SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant becomes the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the United States.
June 1 - Moderna seeks full approval from the FDA for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
June 1 - Michigan lifts several face mask requirements at outdoor gatherings and loosens them at indoor gatherings and businesses. Fully vaccinated people are allowed to not wear masks in public, but unvaccinated and partially vaccinated people are still required to do so.
June 1 - The World Health Organization gives emergency use listing to the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine, the second non–Western vaccine to be authorized.
June 1 – Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, dies at age 77 from cardiac arrest after undergoing surgery on May 27. He was a claimant to the headship of the House of Savoy, the family which ruled Italy from 1861 to 1946. Until 2006, Amedeo was styled Duke of Aosta; he declared himself Duke of Savoy, a title that was disputed between him and his third cousin, Vittorio Emanuele, Prince of Naples, only son of King Umberto II of Italy.
June 2 – Paul Allard Hodgkins, a Tampa man who was seen in the U.S. Senate chamber during the January 6 riot at the United States Capitol, pleads guilty, making him the second suspect to do so after Jon Schaffer.
June 2 – The 2021 Israeli presidential election is held, and won by Isaac Herzog. In order to remove Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from power, Naftali Bennett agrees to form a coalition with the Israeli opposition as a rotation government that will come to take effect after eleven days.
June 3 – The FBI announces that it has opened an investigation into Postmaster General Louis DeJoy over campaign fundraising.
June 3 – Sir Anerood Jugnauth, 2nd Prime Minister and 4th President of Mauritius, dies at age 91 from an illness. He is the longest serving prime minister with more than 18 years of tenure thus overtaking Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, who held the office for 14 years. As leader of the Militant Socialist Movement, he became Prime Minister again, for a fifth term, after the 2000 election. Often nicknamed Rambo (a film character known to be unbeatable), he maintained a historical political career as, under his leadership, his party/alliances won 5 general parliamentary elections in a row, those in 1976, 1982, 1983, 1987, and 1991. He was made Queen's Counsel in 1980 and was made a member of the Privy Council in 1983. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1988 when Mauritius was still one of the Queen's realms and Queen Elizabeth II was Queen of Mauritius.
June 4 - Facebook's Oversight Board announces its ban on former President Donald Trump's personal account will last until January 2023. Trump was originally banned for posting a message supportive of the 2021 United States Capitol attack. It also announces that it will no longer grant blanket immunity to politicians who use its service, especially if their posts are deemed to be deceptive or abusive.
June 4 - District Judge Roger Benitez overturns California's ban on assault weapons.
June 4 - A letter to Apple's Tim Cook is made public, in which staff request more flexibility over remote work, following the company's decision to return its 150,000 employees to the office.
June 4 - The FDA approves the first new medication since 2014, semaglutide (Wegovy), for chronic weight management.
June 4 – Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor, second child of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and eighth in the line of succession to the thrones of the United Kingdom and fourteen other Commonwealth realms.
June 5 - The Department of Justice says that over 465 people have been arrested since the 2021 United States Capitol attack. It is also seeking information on 250 other suspects.
June 5 – The G7 agrees on a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% intended to prevent tax avoidance by some of the world's biggest multinationals.
June 5 – T. B. Joshua, Nigerian televangelist, dies at age 57, just one week prior to his 58th birthday. He was the leader and founder of Synagogue, Church of All Nations (SCOAN), a Christian megachurch that runs the Emmanuel TV television station from Lagos. Joshua was widely known across Africa and Latin America and had a large social media presence with over 6,000,000 fans on Facebook. His YouTube channel, Emmanuel TV, had over 1,000,000 subscribers and was the most-viewed Christian ministry on the platform before the channel was suspended by YouTube in 2021 for alleged homophobic hate speech. Joshua was described by media outlets as the "Oprah of Evangelism" and "YouTube's most popular pastor". He was a controversial figure, and was officially blacklisted by the government of Cameroon in 2010. In June 2019, Joshua held a two-day event at the Amphitheatre of Mount Precipice in Nazareth, Israel, the historic hometown of Jesus Christ. An estimated 15,000 people travelled from over 50 nations to attend the event, significantly boosting local tourism. Joshua incorrectly predicted that Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 US election. After this prophecy failed to materialize, with Donald Trump winning the election, Joshua stated that he was referring to Clinton's win in the popular vote and any misinterpretation was due to a lack of "spiritual understanding". Joshua claimed that COVID-19 would disappear globally on March 27, 2020. A prominent Nigerian Muslim cleric, Sheikh Hussaini Yusuf Mabera, threatened to drag Joshua to court for "describing Jesus Christ as God".
June 6 - Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) announces he has served Mo Brooks (R-AL) with a lawsuit that accuses him of being responsible for inciting the January 6 riot at the Capitol.
June 6 - The U.S. surpasses 300 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered.
June 6 - The United States defeats Mexico 3–2 after extra time in the final to become the first champions of the CONCACAF Nations League.
June 6 - Four people were shot dead at a home in southeast Portland, Oregon.
June 7 - Twitter announces that they have suspended the account of former Florida Department of Health dashboard manager Rebekah Jones for spamming and "platform manipulation" after she paid other users to follow her.
June 7 - Aducanumab (Aduhelm), the first new medication for Alzheimer's disease in 20 years, is approved by the FDA.
June 7 - Vice President Kamala Harris visits Guatemala, making it her first overseas trip as Vice President. She urges migrants not to come to the United States–Mexico border.
June 7 – The Juno spacecraft performs its only flyby of Jupiter's moon Ganymede, the first flyby of the moon by any spacecraft in over 20 years.
June 7 - Ali Akbar Mohtashamipur, Iranian Shia cleric and terrorist, dies at age 73 from COVID-19. He was active in the 1979 Iranian Revolution and later became interior minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He is "seen as a founder of the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon" and one of the "radical elements advocating the export of the revolution," in the Iranian clerical hierarchy. In an Israeli assassination attempt targeting Mohtashami in 1984, he lost his right hand when he opened a book loaded with explosives.
June 9 – President Biden visits the United Kingdom for the 2021 G7 summit, his first international trip as President. Biden also signs the New Atlantic Charter with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, attends the 2021 Brussels summit with leaders of NATO countries, and meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, Switzerland the next week.
June 9 - The 2021 Mongolian presidential election is held.
June 9 - The Legislative Assembly of El Salvador passes legislation to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in the country, becoming the first country to adopt the cryptocurrency alongside the U.S. dollar.
June 10 – The Maine Legislature passes a law mandating the state government completely divest from fossil fuel by 2026. If signed into law, Maine will be the first state to divest from the fossil fuel industry.
June 10 – An annular solar eclipse is visible from Canada, Greenland, the North Pole, and the Russian Far East.
June 11 – June 13 – World leaders meet at the 47th G7 summit, hosted by the United Kingdom, with topics of discussion including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and the corporate taxation of multinationals.
June 11 – Paola Pigni, Italian middle-distance runner, dies at age 75. She was a three-time world champion in cross country and held the world record over five distance running events on the track, from 1500m to 10,000m. Pigni competed for her native country at the 1972 Summer Olympics held in Munich, West Germany, where she won the bronze medal in the women's 1500 m. She was the winner of the France version of the 1970 International Cross Country Championships. She followed this up by winning the first two women's titles at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in 1973 and 1974. In an era when the popularity of female middle-distance running was increasing, Pigni established six world records.
June 12 - YouTube announces that it has suspended U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) for violating their policies about promoting unproven alternative therapies to treat COVID-19.
June 13 – Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest-serving prime minister of Israel, is voted out of office; Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid are sworn in as Prime Minister of Israel and as Alternate Prime Minister of Israel, respectively.
June 13 – Ned Beatty, American actor, dies at age 83 of natural causes, three weeks before his 84th birthday. In a career that spanned five decades, he appeared in more than 160 films. Throughout his career, Beatty gained a reputation for being described as "The busiest actor in Hollywood". His film appearances included Deliverance (1972), All the President's Men (1976), Network (1976), Superman (1978), Back to School (1986), Rudy (1993), Shooter (2007), and Toy Story 3 (2010). Beatty was nominated for an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain, and a Golden Globe Award; he also won a Drama Desk Award. He had 8 children with 3 wives. Beatty was not related to fellow Hollywood star Warren Beatty, also born in 1937. When asked if they were related, Beatty had been known to joke that Warren was his "illegitimate uncle". On June 29, 2012, Beatty attended a 40th anniversary screening of Deliverance at Warner Bros., with Burt Reynolds, Ronny Cox and Jon Voight. He supported Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign.
June 14 - American intelligence specialist Reality Winner, who was convicted in 2018 for leaking an NSA report on Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections to news site The Intercept, is released from prison.
June 14 - Vermont Governor Phil Scott announces that 80% of individuals in his state have received a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, becoming the first U.S. state to do so. Following the milestone, Scott announced that the state would lift their restrictions.
June 14 – COVID-19 pandemic: Novavax announces 90.4% overall efficacy in its Phase 3 U.S. and Mexico trial.
June 14 - Enrique Bolaños, 29th President of Nicaragua, dies at age 93 in poor health. On November 4, 2001 he defeated Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista National Liberation Front party in the presidential election and was sworn in as president on January 10, 2002. He was a member of the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) until he broke with it to help form the Alliance for the Republic (APRE). At the beginning of his term as president, he led an anti-corruption campaign that ultimately convicted his predecessor and head of the PLC, Arnoldo Alemán.
June 14 - Markis Kido, Indonesian badminton player, dies at age 36 from an apparent heart attack during a badminton friendly match. He was one of the world's leading players in men's doubles discipline. He won the discipline's gold medal at the 2006 World Cup, 2007 World Championships, 2008 Olympic Games, 2009 Asia Championships, and 2010 Asian Games with Hendra Setiawan.
June 15 - Four women were killed and three others injured after gunfire erupted in a South Side Chicago residence. Another woman died in a hospital.
June 15 - California authorities remove the mask mandate for outdoor activities.
June 15 - The nationwide death toll from the COVID-19 virus exceeds 600,000 after 17 months, equal to the annual cancer death toll.
June 15 – Vladimir Shatalov, Soviet and Russian cosmonaut, dies at age 93. He flew three space missions of the Soyuz programme: Soyuz 4, Soyuz 8, and Soyuz 10.
June 16 – Texas Governor Greg Abbott signs Texas House Bill 1927, eliminating the requirement for Texas residents to obtain a license to carry handguns either concealed or openly starting September 1, 2021.
June 17 - Politico obtains a recording of William Braddock, GOP candidate in a Florida congressional seat, threatening to send "a Russian and Ukrainian hit squad" to fellow Republican opponent Anna Paulina Luna to make her "disappear."
June 17 - The House votes, by 268 to 161, to repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. Elaine Luria of Virginia was the only Democrat to oppose the repeal. She is Jewish and describes herself as an "unabashed supporter" of the U.S. relationship with Israel. Introduced in Congress on October 2, 2002, in conjunction with the Administration's proposals, H.J.Res. 114 passed the House of Representatives on Thursday afternoon at 3:05 p.m. EDT on October 10, 2002, by a vote of 296–133, and passed the Senate after midnight early Friday morning, at 12:50 a.m. EDT on October 11, 2002, by a vote of 77–23. 81 Democrats in the House and 29 Democrats in the Senate supported the use of the United States Armed Forces against Saddam Hussein's Iraq government in what would be known as Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was signed into law as Pub.L. 107–243 by President Bush on October 16, 2002.
June 17 - President Biden signs a bill making Juneteenth an official federal holiday. Passage of the bill was rushed through Congress and many government agencies and states were not prepared. The U.S. Postal Service operated as normal, as did the stock market, some banks, some schools, and some federal courts.
June 17 – The China National Space Administration sends its first three astronauts to occupy the Tiangong Space Station, the country's first space station.
June 17 – Kenneth Kaunda, 1st President of Zambia, dies at age 97 from pneumonia. He was at the forefront of the struggle for independence from British rule. The 1973 oil crisis and a slump in export revenues put Zambia in a state of economic crisis. International pressure forced Kaunda to change the rules that had kept him in power. Multi-party elections took place in 1991, in which Frederick Chiluba, the leader of the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy, ousted Kaunda. He was briefly stripped of Zambian citizenship in 1999, but the decision was overturned the following year.
June 18 – 2021 NBA playoffs: The Los Angeles Clippers advance to their first NBA Conference Finals after a 131-119 victory against the Utah Jazz in game 6, in which they will play the Phoenix Suns.
June 18 - The 2021 Iranian presidential election is held. Chief Justice of Iran Ebrahim Raisi receives 72% of the vote. His political party is the Combatant Clergy Association.
June 18 - Giampiero Boniperti, Italian athlete, dies at age 92 from heart failure. He was a soccer player who played his entire 15-season career at Juventus between 1946 and 1961, winning five Serie A titles and two Coppa Italia titles. He also played for the Italy national team at the international level, and took part at the 1950 and 1954 FIFA World Cup finals, as well as the 1952 Summer Olympics with Italy. After retirement from professional sports, Boniperti was a CEO and chairman of Juventus and, later, a deputy to the European Parliament. In March 2004, he was named by Pelé as one of the world's top greatest living players for the FIFA 100.
June 18 - Milkha Singh, Indian athlete, dies at age 91 from COVID-19. Known as The Flying Sikh, he was an Indian track and field sprinter who was introduced to the sport while serving in the Indian Army. He is the only athlete to win gold at 400 meters at the Asian Games as well as the Commonwealth Games. He also won gold medals in the 1958 and 1962 Asian Games. He represented India in the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome and the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. He was awarded the Padma Shri, India's fourth-highest civilian honor, in recognition of his sporting achievements. The race for which Singh was best remembered is his fourth-place finish in the 400 meters final at the 1960 Olympic Games, which he had entered as one of the favorites. He led the race till the 200m mark before easing off, allowing others to pass him. Various records were broken in the race, which required a photo-finish and saw American Otis Davis being declared the winner by one-hundredth of a second over German Carl Kaufmann. Singh's fourth-place time of 45.73 seconds was the Indian national record for almost 40 years. From beginnings that saw him orphaned and displaced during the Partition of India, Singh has become a sporting icon in his country. In 2008, journalist Rohit Brijnath described Singh as "the finest athlete India has ever produced".
June 20 - 2021 Arizona wildfires – An outbreak of wildfires begins in Arizona due to thunderstorms producing dry lightning coming through the state from June 14 to June 20. Due to the outbreak, as well as fire danger, many national forests in the state of Arizona are closed to the public. The only people allowed in the forests are firefighters and people who own property in the forests.
June 20 - 2021 Atlantic hurricane season – Thirteen people are killed in Alabama during Tropical Storm Claudette. Ten of the victims die in a single car crash, nine of whom are children.
June 20 - An EF3 tornado strikes the Illinois cities of Naperville, Woodridge, and Darien, destroying 12 homes, damaging an additional 100, and injuring six people.
June 20 - COVID-19 pandemic: Brazil becomes the second country to surpass half a million deaths from the virus.
June 20 - 2021 Armenian parliamentary election: Acting PM Nikol Pashinyan wins the country's snap election, with his Civil Contract party gaining 54% of the vote.
June 21 - Minnesota Vikings defensive tackle Jaylen Twyman is shot along with three others while visiting his aunt in Washington, DC.
June 22 - 2021 New York City mayoral election – Residents of New York City head to the polls to elect a new mayor. This is the first time that a New York City election is determined using rank-choice voting.
June 22 - 2021 Buffalo mayoral election – Community activist and self-avowed socialist India Walton defeats incumbent mayor Byron Brown to win the Democratic primary. As the Democratic candidate is overwhelmingly favored to win the mayorship in November, this will possibly be the first time that a socialist will be mayor of a major American city since 1960.
June 22 - Michigan lifts its face mask requirements and capacity restrictions on indoor events. Masks are still required for nursing homes, prisons, hospitals, schools, funeral directors, and agricultural workers. Usage at businesses is optional.
June 23 – John McAfee, English-born American computer programmer and businessman, dies at age 75 from suicide by hanging in his prison cell, shortly after his extradition to the U.S. was authorized by the Spanish National Court. He was a two-time presidential candidate who unsuccessfully sought the Libertarian Party nomination for president of the United States in 2016 and 2020. In 1987, he wrote the first commercial anti-virus software, founding McAfee Associates to sell his creation. He resigned in 1994 and sold his remaining stake in the company. McAfee became the company's most vocal critic in later years, urging consumers to uninstall the company's anti-virus software, which he characterized as bloatware. He disavowed the company's continued use of his name in branding, a practice that has persisted in spite of a short-lived corporate rebrand attempt under Intel ownership. McAfee's fortunes plummeted in the financial crisis of 2007–2008. After leaving McAfee Associates, he founded the companies Tribal Voice (makers of the PowWow chat program), QuorumEx, and Future Tense Central, among others, and was involved in leadership positions in the companies Everykey, MGT Capital Investments, and Luxcore, among others. His personal and business interests included smartphone apps, cryptocurrency, yoga, light-sport aircraft and recreational drug use. He resided for a number of years in Belize but returned to the United States in 2013 while wanted in Belize for questioning on suspicion of murder. In October 2020, McAfee was arrested in Spain over U.S. tax evasion charges. U.S. federal prosecutors brought criminal and civil charges alleging that McAfee had failed to pay income taxes over a four-year period.
June 24 - Surfside condominium building collapse – A 12-story condominium apartment building in Surfside, Florida partially collapses. At the official end of search on July 23, the death toll is 97, with one further person unaccounted for.
June 24 - A pedestrian bridge on Interstate 295 collapses in northeastern Washington, D.C., injuring five.
June 24 - President Biden announces that he has reached a bipartisan infrastructure deal with Senators.
June 24 - Over 500 suspects have been arrested since the Capitol riot. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announces that the first suspect is arrested for assaulting media during the events of January 6.
June 24 - The Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court suspends former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani from practicing law over his false claims about the 2020 election.
June 24 - Microsoft unveils Windows 11, the latest generation of its computer operating system.
June 24 - The Federal Aviation Administration approves a request to rename McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, currently the seventh-busiest airport by passenger traffic in the United States, to Harry Reid International Airport.
June 24 - Benigno Aquino III, 15th President of the Philippines, dies at age 61 from diabetic kidney disease. The son of politician Benigno Aquino Jr. and President Corazon Aquino, he was a fourth-generation politician as part of the Aquino family of Tarlac. His mother was the 11th president of the Philippines. His presidency was marked by stabilizing and growing the nation's economy into its highest in decades, and the country was dubbed as a "Rising Tiger". Aquino is also credited for his confrontational foreign policy. His administration filed an arbitration case, Philippines v. China, before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in an attempt to invalidate China's claims in the South China Sea and asserted his own country's claims in the area; the court ruled in favor of the Philippines. Aquino received criticism for the Mamasapano clash, a botched police operation that killed 44 members of the Special Action Force, and several other issues. His non-renewable term ended on June 30, 2016, and he was succeeded by Rodrigo Duterte. After leaving office, Aquino was the subject of legal actions over his role in the Mamasapano clash and for approval of a controversial budget project.
June 24 - Trần Thiện Khiêm, 7th Prime Minister of South Vietnam and army officer, dies at age 95 while recovering from a fall at a nursing home around Irvine, California. Khiem lived in retirement in San Jose, California, and was baptized as a Catholic there in 2018. During the 1960s, he was involved in several coups. He helped President Ngô Đình Diệm put down a November 1960 coup attempt and was rewarded with a promotion. In 1963, however, he was involved in the coup that deposed and assassinated Diêm.
June 25 - Defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning advance to the Stanley Cup Finals to face the Montreal Canadiens.
June 25 - Former police officer Derek Chauvin is sentenced to 22.5 years in prison for the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020.
June 26 - In Southeast Michigan, a rainband sets up across Washtenaw County and Wayne County. The local weather radar estimated that some areas in Detroit received 6 inches of rain. Local highways like I-75, I-94, and I-96 were flooded, and hundreds of cars were left stranded.
June 26 - 2021 Albuquerque hot air balloon crash – Five people are killed when a hot air balloon crashes into power lines in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
June 26 – Mir Hazar Khan Khoso, Acting Prime Minister of Pakistan, dies at age 91 from myocardial infarction.
June 28 – Tigray War: The Tigray Defense Force seizes the Tigrayan capital Mekelle shortly after the Ethiopian government declares a ceasefire.
June 29 - Recreational cannabis becomes legal in New Mexico.
June 29 - San Jose becomes the first city in the nation to mandate that gun owners both purchase liability insurance for their firearms and to pay an annual fee to cover costs to the city's services for gun-related injuries and deaths, after the city council unanimously adopted the measures.
June 29 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of vaccinations administered worldwide exceeds 3 billion.
June 29 – Donald Rumsfeld, American politician and government official, dies at age 88 from multiple myeloma at his home in Taos, New Mexico, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery on August 24, 2021. He served as secretary of defense from 1975 to 1977 under president Gerald Ford, and again from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He was both the youngest and the oldest secretary of defense. Additionally, Rumsfeld was a three-term U.S. Congressman from Illinois (1963–1969), director of the Office of Economic Opportunity (1969–1970), counselor to the president (1969–1973), the U.S. Representative to NATO (1973–1974), and the White House Chief of Staff (1974–1975). Between his terms as secretary of defense, he served as the CEO and chairman of several companies. As Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld played a central role in the invasion of Afghanistan and invasion of Iraq. Before and during the Iraq War, he claimed that Iraq had an active weapons of mass destruction program; yet no stockpiles were ever found. A Pentagon Inspector General report found that Rumsfeld's top policy aide "developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaeda relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers". Rumsfeld's tenure was controversial for its use of torture and the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal. Rumsfeld gradually lost political support and resigned in late 2006. In his retirement years, he published an autobiography, Known and Unknown, as well as Rumsfeld's Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War, and Life. In June 2016, Rumsfeld announced that he would vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
June 30 - Comedian Bill Cosby's sexual assault conviction is overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, paving the way for his release.
June 30 - A grand jury in Manhattan indicts the Trump organization, as well as CFO Allen Weisselberg.
June 30 - An intentional controlled detonation of illegal fireworks by the Los Angeles Police Department in a busy neighborhood of South Los Angeles does not go as planned, injuring seventeen people, including 10 LAPD officers, and damaging windows, cars, and buildings.
June 30 – Bonfoh Abass, Acting President of Togo, dies at age 72. He particularly noted the importance of improving the availability of potable water, quality education, and medicine.
JULY
July 1 - Recreational cannabis becomes legal in Connecticut and Virginia.
July 1 - Medical cannabis becomes legal in South Dakota.
July 1 - Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer announces a month-long vaccination raffle in which residents can win a total of $5 million in cash (one grand prize of $2 million or three prizes of $1 million) and $500,000 total in college scholarships for children ages 12–17 years old (nine prizes of $55,000). The winners were drawn on August 4.
July 2 – Hundreds of businesses are hit by a large-scale cyberattack, linked to the Russian REvil ransomware gang.
July 2–5 – At least 233 people were killed and 618 people were injured in over 500 shootings nationwide during the Independence Day weekend.
July 3 – Over 130 wildfires, fueled by lightning strikes, burn through Western Canada following a record-breaking heatwave in North America that results in over 600 deaths.
July 5 – More than 1,000 Afghan soldiers flee to neighboring Tajikistan after clashing with Taliban militants.
July 5 - Richard Donner, American film director, dies at age 91 from cardiopulmonary failure with atherosclerosis as an underlying cause. His notable works included some of the most financially-successful films during the New Hollywood era (mid 1960s to early 1980s). According to film historian Michael Barson, Donner was "one of Hollywood's most reliable makers of action blockbusters". His career spanned over 50 years, crossing multiple genres and filmmaking trends. Donner began his career in 1957 as a television director, helming episodes of series like The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Fugitive, and The Twilight Zone. He made his film debut with the low-budget aviation drama X-15 in 1961, but had his critical and commercial breakthrough with the horror film The Omen in 1976. He directed the landmark superhero film Superman in 1978, which provided an inspiration for the fantasy film genre to eventually gain artistic respectability and commercial dominance. Donner later went on to direct films in the 1980s such as The Goonies and Scrooged, while reinvigorating the buddy film genre with the Lethal Weapon series. Donner and his wife, Lauren, owned their production company The Donners' Company (formerly Donner/Shuler Donner Productions), best known for producing the Free Willy and X-Men franchises. Donner also produced the Tales from the Crypt television series, and co-wrote several comic books for Superman publisher DC Comics. In 2000, Donner received the President's Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films.
July 6 – 2021 New York City mayoral election – Eric Adams was declared the winner of the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City.
July 6 - Patrick John, 1st Prime Minister of Dominica, dies at age 83. He led Dominica to independence from the United Kingdom. After mass protest forced him to resign, John unsuccessfully attempted in 1981 to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Eugenia Charles with the backing of white supremacist groups (in what became dubbed "Operation Red Dog"). As a result, he was jailed for twelve years, of which he served five years.
July 7 – The Tampa Bay Lightning defeat the Montreal Canadiens (4-1) in the 2021 Stanley Cup Finals to win their second consecutive Stanley Cup.
July 7 – Assassination of Jovenel Moïse: Haitian President Jovenel Moïse is shot to death at 1:00 am local time in his home. First Lady Martine Moïse is injured and hospitalized.
July 7 - Ahmed Jibril, Palestinian militant, dies at age 84 of heart failure. He was the founder and leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC). During the Syrian Civil War, Jibril was a notable supporter of the Assad government and PFLP-GC members helped government forces to fight the Syrian opposition. However, after clashes with rebels in Yarmouk Camp in Damascus, the PFLP-GC suffered defections and was forced to withdraw from the camp, and Jibril fled the city.
July 7 - Dilip Kumar, Indian actor, film producer and philanthropist, dies at age 98 from testicular cancer and pleural effusion. Referred to as the "Tragedy King" for his portrayal of serious roles and retrospectively as "The First Khan" of Bollywood, he has been described as one of the most successful film stars in the industry and is credited with bringing a distinct form of method acting to cinema. Kumar holds the record for most wins for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor (eight, which was later equaled by Shah Rukh Khan) and was also the inaugural recipient of the award, he has won 3 Filmfare awards consecutively (which was later equaled by Abhishek Bachchan). In a career spanning over five decades, Kumar worked in over 65 films in a variety of roles. Both Andaz and Aan briefly became the highest-grossing Indian film up to that point, a feat later achieved by Mughal-e-Azam, which sustained the record for 15 years. As of 2021, the latter remains the highest-grossing film in India when adjusted for inflation. For his contributions to film, the Government of India awarded him with the Padma Bhushan in 1991 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015, the country's third and second-highest civilian awards respectively. He was also awarded India's highest accolade in the field of cinema, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1994. In 1998, the Government of Pakistan conferred Kumar with Nishan-e-Imtiaz, their highest civilian decoration, making him the only Indian to have received the honor. The house that Kumar grew up in, located in Peshawar, was declared a national heritage monument in 2014 by the Pakistani government.
July 8 – Attorney Michael Avenatti is sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for attempting to extort Nike.
July 8 - The number of global deaths from COVID-19 surpasses 4 million.
July 9 - Twitter announces that they have suspended political commentator and nationalist Nick Fuentes.
July 9 - President Biden signs a 72-point executive order placing tighter regulations and scrutiny on major corporations in a variety of sectors, including Big Tech companies. Policies outlined include banning non-compete clauses, curbing the ability of manufacturers to restrict the right to repair certain products, granting the Federal Trade Commission the ability to set guidelines on data collection, banning unfair competition practices in online marketplaces, and ordering the Food and Drug Administration to work with states and Native American tribes on procuring cheaper medicines from Canada.
July 9 - Illinois becomes the first state to teach history about Asian Americans in public schools.
July 9 - Frank Lui, 3rd Premier of Niue, dies at age 85. Lui was raised by his grandparents on Niue after his parents and older siblings migrated to Wellington, New Zealand. On leaving school, he joined the New Zealand merchant navy, and was immediately caught up in the prolonged and acrimonious waterfront workers strike of 1951. He returned to Niue in 1956 to care for his grandparents. He was subjected to colonial discrimination which motivated him to political activity to change an oppressive, paternalistic system run by the New Zealand Government (e.g., "natives" of Niue were not permitted to buy liquor, and were paid wages lower than ex-patriate New Zealanders). He organized the first ever strike on Niue.
July 10 – Esther Béjarano, German singer and Holocaust survivor, dies at age 96. She was one of the last survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp. She survived because she was a player in the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz. She was active in various ways, including speeches and in music, in keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive. She was a regular speaker at the International Youth Meeting organized yearly at the Max Mannheimer Study Center in Dachau. At the age of 15 she left her parents' home to make an attempt to emigrate to Palestine; the attempt was unsuccessful. She served two years of hard labor at a camp in Landwerk Neuendorf [de], near Fürstenwalde/Spree. On April 20, 1943, everyone in the camp was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. There she had to drag stones until she volunteered to play accordion. She was one of the last surviving orchestra members.
July 11 - Thousands of Cubans, most of them young, attend a rare anti-government protest in San Antonio de los Baños to protest the increased food and medicine shortages brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
July 11 - Moldova holds a parliamentary election, with the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) obtaining a majority of seats.
July 11 - Bulgaria holds a parliamentary election, with the party There Is Such a People (ITN) leading.
July 11–13 – The 2021 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft was held in Denver. Henry Davis was selected first overall by the Pittsburgh Pirates.
July 12 - Actor Drake Bell, 35, is sentenced to two years of probation for child endangerment. Bell's 19-year-old accuser made a public appearance and statement accusing him of sexually assaulting her while she was underage, in addition to the endangerment charges. Bell is known for his roles on Nickelodeon. He is also a musician and his second album, It's Only Time, released in 2006 has sold 178,000 copies in the United States as of 2012.
July 12 - Ghislaine Maxwell, the long-time friend and partner of Jeffrey Epstein, appears in court in relation to allegations of sex trafficking.
July 12 – 2021 European floods: Heavy rain causes flooding in the border region of Germany and Belgium, resulting in 229 deaths, including 184 in Germany, 42 in Belgium with 1 person still missing there, and 2 in Romania. The event is attributed to a slowed jetstream caused by climate change.
July 13 – The American League defeat the National League (5–2) in the 2021 MLB All-Star Game. The game was moved from a city that is 38.3% non-Hispanic white to one that is 54.9% non-Hispanic white. The move was done in retaliation for the Georgia State Legislature's passage of the Election Integrity Act of 2021, which expands early in-person voting, increases voting stations or staff and equipment where there have been long lines, gives the Georgia General Assembly greater control over election administration, and shortens runoff elections, among other provisions.
July 13 – After the Supreme Court declares his incumbency unconstitutional, KP Oli is succeeded by Sher Bahadur Deuba as 43rd Prime Minister of Nepal.
July 13 – Shirley Fry, American tennis player, dies at age 94. During her career, which lasted from the early 1940s until the mid-1950s, she won the singles title at all four Grand Slam events, as well as 13 doubles titles, and was ranked No. 1 in the world in 1956. She started playing tennis competitively at age nine. Fry was one of 10 women to have won each Grand Slam singles tournament at least once during her career. She was also one of seven women (with Hart, Court, Navratilova, Pam Shriver, Serena Williams, and Venus Williams) to have won all four Grand Slam doubles tournaments. At the U.S. National Championship (precursor of the U.S. Open) in 1942, Fry reached the singles quarterfinals at the age of 15. She briefly retired in early 1956 and worked as a copygirl for the St. Petersburg Times. She was married until her husband’s death in 1976 and they had four children. She was the longest surviving female Grand Slam tournament and Wimbledon singles champion.
July 14 - Mamnoon Hussain, 12th President of Pakistan, dies at age 80 from cancer. He was first appointed Governor of Sindh in June 1999 by President Rafiq Tarar; but was removed from the post in October 1999 due to the 1999 military coup d'état. Hussain was then nominated for the presidency by the Pakistan Muslim League party (PML(N)) in July 2013 and was elected through an indirect presidential election. Hussain took over the presidency after an oath administered by the Chief Justice of Pakistan on September 9, 2013. Hussain maintained a low-key profile as President and his role was rarely seen in the nation's politics, although he was involved in a polio eradication program.
July 14 - Kurt Westergaard, Danish cartoonist, dies at age 86 in his sleep after suffering from a long illness. In 2005 he drew a cartoon of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, wearing a bomb in his turban as a part of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons, which triggered several assassinations and murders committed by Islamists around the world, diplomatic conflicts, and state-organized riots and attacks on Western embassies with several dead in Muslim countries. After the drawing of the cartoon, Westergaard received numerous death threats and was a target of assassination attempts. As a result, he was under constant police protection. On September 8, 2010, he was awarded the M100 Media Award (M100-Medienpreis) by German Chancellor Angela Merkel for his contributions to freedom of opinion. In 2011, Westergaard, helped by John Lykkegaard, published his memoir Manden bag stregen.
July 16 – Michael Gargiulo (a.k.a. the Hollywood Ripper) is sentenced to death for two murders. It is possible that he committed up to 10 murders, and one of his victims survived. He is a convicted serial killer and rapist. He moved to Southern California in the 1990s, and was born in Illinois.
July 17 – A shooting occurs outside of Nationals Park during a game between the San Diego Padres and the Washington Nationals during the sixth inning, causing the game to get postponed to the next day.
July 17 – Pilar Bardem, Spanish actress and activist, dies at age 82 from a serious lung disease. In 1996, she won the Goya Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Nobody Will Speak of Us When We're Dead. She was the mother of Carlos, Mónica, and Javier Bardem. During the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, she remained close to the clandestine Communist Party.
July 18 – An international investigation reveals that spyware sold by Israel's NSO Group to different governments is being used to target heads of state, along with thousands of activists, journalists and dissidents around the world.
July 19 – Fox News host Sean Hannity urges viewers to take the threat of COVID-19 seriously, as well as urging viewers to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
July 19 - Leftist schoolteacher Pedro Castillo is confirmed as President of Peru over a month after the 2021 Peruvian general election.
July 19 - Day of Hajj: Women are permitted to attend without a male guardian (mehrem) provided they go in a trustworthy group.
July 19 – Arturo Armando Molina, 36th President of El Salvador, dies at age 93 in California. The 1973 oil crisis led to rising food prices and decreased agricultural output. This worsened the existent socioeconomic inequality in the country, leading to increased unrest. In response, Molina enacted a series of land reform measures, calling for large landholdings to be redistributed among the peasant population. Molina was distrusted by the oligarchy and the right-wing military, and was resented by the opposition from whom he had stolen power. His attempts to silence opposition included the military occupation of the University of El Salvador in 1972, as well as violently suppressing student protests which erupted after public funds were used to hold the Miss Universe contest in San Salvador. He also oversaw assassinations of priests in the country. His regime saw extreme polarization and violence in the country. His tenure ended in 1977, and then he left the country. Molina returned to El Salvador in 1992.
July 20 - Four adults were killed in a robbery after three men broke into their home in Jacksonville, Texas. The three men were arrested later the next day.
July 20 - Blue Origin NS-16: On the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, Jeff Bezos successfully launches the Blue Origin rocket New Shepard 4 in Van Horn, Texas, carrying himself, his brother Mark, 82-year-old retired pilot Wally Funk, and 18-year-old college student Oliver Daemen. The rocket lands back on Earth within minutes, completing the first crewed spaceflight with reusable rockets.
July 20 - Tom Barrack, founder of Colony Capital and an advisor of Donald Trump, is indicted for making false statements to the FBI and being an unregistered agent for the United Arab Emirates.
July 20 - The Milwaukee Bucks defeat the Phoenix Suns (4–2) in the 2021 NBA Finals to win their first championship since 1971.
July 21 - The 2021 NHL Expansion Draft is held at Gas Works Park in Seattle, where the 32nd NHL team, the Seattle Kraken fills out its first ever roster of players.
July 21 - Santa Monica based video game publisher Activision Blizzard, Inc. is hit with a massive lawsuit from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing after a two-year investigation reveals a "frat boy" like work environment where female employees face sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation for speaking out against the company.
July 21 - The Tennessee State Building Commission announces that the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest will be moved from the Tennessee State Capitol to the Tennessee State Museum. He lived from 1821 to 1877 and was a prominent Confederate Army general during the American Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan from 1867 to 1869. Before the war, Forrest amassed substantial wealth as a cotton plantation owner, horse and cattle trader, real estate broker, and slave trader. In June 1861, he enlisted in the Confederate Army and became one of the few soldiers during the war to enlist as a private and be promoted to general without any prior military training.
July 21 - The Missouri Supreme Court unanimously upholds a 2020 amendment to the state's constitution that expanded Medicaid eligibility.
July 21 – The International Olympic Committee awards Brisbane the right to host the 2032 Summer Olympics.
July 22 – Boris Chochiev, Acting Prime Minister of South Ossetia, dies at age 63 from COVID-19. Before becoming Prime Minister, Chochiev served as first deputy minister, as well chief negotiator for the South Ossetian secessionist government. Chochiev was also a member of the Joint Control Commission.
July 23 – Cleveland's Major League Baseball team announces that they will change their name from the Indians to the Guardians, resolving a decades-long controversy.
July 23 – The Court of Appeal of Samoa deemed the swearing-in of Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa and her government as constitutional, ending a three-month constitutional crisis.
July 23 – August 8 – The United States competes at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan and wins 39 gold, 41 silver, and 33 bronze medals. The United States led the final results with the most bronze, silver, gold, and total medals.
July 25 - When responding to a hostage situation at a home in Wasco, California, officers were fired upon by the shooter. Two officers were shot, and one succumbed to their injuries. Three people inside the house were slain by the shooter. The gunman was also killed during the shootout.
July 25 - 2020 Summer Olympics: American fencer Lee Kiefer wins a gold medal at the women’s foil event for fencing, making her the first American woman to do so. Additionally, Anastasija Zolotic becomes the first American woman to win a gold medal in taekwondo. Her parents are immigrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
July 25 – Tunisian president Kais Saied formally takes power in the country, suspending the parliament and sacking the prime minister.
July 25 – Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho, Portuguese military official and politician, dies at age 84 from heart failure. He was the chief strategist of the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Lisbon. After the Revolution, Otelo assumed leadership roles in the first Portuguese Provisional Governments, alongside Vasco Gonçalves and Francisco da Costa Gomes, and as the head of military defense force COPCON. In 1976, Otelo ran in the first Portuguese presidential election, in which he placed second with the base of his support coming from the far-left. In the 1980s Otelo was sentenced for being a leading member of the terrorist group Forças Populares 25 de Abril, which killed 17 people in several attacks. He was pardoned in the 1990s. Otelo is still an icon for activists of the left in Portugal, but is hated by many right-wingers who consider him a terrorist who tried to seize power in the country in order to become Portugal's Fidel Castro.
July 26 - Joey Jordison, American drummer, dies at age 46. He suffered from acute transverse myelitis. Its symptoms started in 2010 while touring, but the disease was diagnosed long after. The neurological disease had temporarily cost him the use of his legs and caused him to be unable to play the drums before rehabilitation. He recovered with the aid of medical help and intensive work in the gym. He was the original drummer and co-founder of the American heavy metal band Slipknot as well as the guitarist for the American horror punk supergroup Murderdolls. He was given his first drum kit at the age of 8.
July 26 - Ivan Toplak, Serbian soccer player and manager, dies at age 89. At the 1984 Summer Olympics, he guided Yugoslavia to a bronze medal.
July 27 - A runoff election is held in Texas to fill a vacancy in its 6th congressional district due to the death of Ron Wright on February 7. Republican Jake Ellzey wins with 20,837 of the 39,116 votes cast (53.27%).
July 27 - Whatcom County, Washington becomes the first state county to ban new fossil fuel infrastructure. The new law also places restrictions on existing fossil fuel facilities, such as a requirement that any greenhouse gases emitted from expansion be offset. According to the 2020 census it has a population of 226,847, which gives it the rank of 9th most populous county in the state.
July 28 - The Senate votes 67-32 to advance the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
July 28 - Swimming at the 2020 Summer Olympics: Florida swimmer Bobby Finke becomes the first American to win a gold medal at the 800-meter freestyle event at the Olympics.
July 28 – The first direct observation of light from behind a black hole is reported, confirming Einstein's theory of general relativity.
July 28 - Dusty Hill, American musician and singer-songwriter, dies at age 72 from chronic bursitis. He was the bassist of the rock band ZZ Top. He also sang lead and backing vocals, and played keyboards. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of ZZ Top in 2004. Hill played with the band for over 50 years; after his death, he was succeeded by the band's longtime guitar tech Elwood Francis, in line with Hill's wishes. His real name was Joe Michael Hill. He believed in God, but he did not know "what or who God actually is". He declined to say if he was a Republican or Democrat, and said: "I just tell them that I’m a Texan. Left to my own devices I'd never leave Texas. Everything is bigger in Texas.” On December 16, 1984, Hill accidentally shot himself in the abdomen when his derringer fell from his boot and discharged. Hill said, "To this day, I don't know how I could do it. But I didn't really feel anything at the time. All I knew was that I had to get myself to a hospital straight away, so I got in the car and drove there. It was only when I arrived at the hospital that the seriousness of what I'd done hit me, and I went into shock." He made a full recovery. Hill married his longtime girlfriend, Charleen McCrory, an actress, in 2002. He had one daughter.
July 29 - Trevor Milton, billionaire and founder of the Nikola electric truck startup, is indicted on three counts of fraud.
July 29 - Suni Lee wins a gold medal in the gymnastics all-around competition, making her the first Asian American to win a gold medal in gymnastics during the Olympics.
July 29 - COVID-19 vaccination: Vermont becomes the first U.S. state to vaccinate 70% of children aged 12 to 17 years old.
July 29 - Roscosmos' Nauka laboratory docks with the International Space Station following a protracted seventeen-year development and launch on July 21. Hours after docking, a malfunction of its thrusters causes a temporary loss of control of the station, spinning it up to 45 degrees from its normal orbital attitude.
July 29 - The oil tanker Mercer Street, travelling from Tanzania to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with no cargo onboard, is attacked off the coast of Oman.
July 30 - The Senate votes 66-28 to allow debates to begin on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
July 30 - The Department of Justice rules that the U.S. Treasury must hand over the tax returns of former President Donald Trump to Congress.
July 30 - Swimming at the 2020 Summer Olympics: Caeleb Dressel breaks a world record in the 100m butterfly during the Olympics, finishing in 49.45 seconds.
July 31 - Florida swimmer Bobby Finke wins a gold medal at the 1500-meter freestyle event at the Olympics, becoming the first American to do so since Mike O'Brien in 1984.
July 31 - Florida reports 21,683 cases of COVID-19, a new single-day record.
AUGUST
August 2 - Over 70% of adults are reported to have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
August 2 - U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham announces that he has tested positive for COVID-19, despite receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.
August 3 - COVID-19 vaccination: New York City mandates vaccines for indoor dining, gyms, and performances, becoming the first U.S. city to do so.
August 3 - A report released by New York Attorney General Letitia James says that Governor Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women.
August 3 - The oil tanker Asphalt Princess is hijacked off the coast of the United Arab Emirates.
August 3 - Wildfires in Greece begin.
August 3 – Arthur Dion Hanna, 7th Governor-General of the Bahamas, dies at age 93.
August 4 - Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter of Colorado announces that two lawyers, Gary D. Fielder and Ernest John Walker, will be sanctioned for filing a lawsuit challenging the results of the 2020 election.
August 4 - Louisiana reports 2,247 hospitalizations, a new single-day record.
August 4 - 2020 Summer Olympics: Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya is given political asylum in Poland through a humanitarian visa after attempts by the Belarus Olympic Committee to repatriate her against her will.
August 4 - The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases surpasses 200 million worldwide.
August 5 – President Biden sets a goal for half of new cars sold to be zero-emission by 2030.
August 5 – Tigray War: The Tigray Defense Forces seize the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Lalibela. It is famous for its rock-cut monolithic churches. To Christians, Lalibela is one of Ethiopia's holiest cities, and a center of pilgrimage.
August 5 – Yevhen Marchuk, 4th Prime Minister of Ukraine, dies at age 80 from acute pulmonary heart failure that was exacerbated by a COVID-19 infection. Marchuk had the rank of General of the Army of Ukraine.
August 6 - COVID-19 vaccination: The CDC reports that 50% of the U.S. population (including both adults and children) is now fully vaccinated, or about 166 million people.
August 6 - Florida reports 22,783 new cases of COVID-19, a new single-day record.
August 6 - New Jersey gym owner Scott K. Fairlamb and Washington resident Devlyn D. Thompson plead guilty to assaulting U.S. Capitol Police officers during the Capitol riot, becoming the first suspects to do so.
August 6 - Karate at the 2020 Summer Olympics: American karateka Ariel Torres wins a bronze medal in the men's kata event, winning the first U.S. medal in karate.
August 6 - 2021 California fire season: The Dixie Fire near Chico becomes the largest fire in the history of California. Smoke from the Dixie Fire caused unhealthy air quality across the Western United States, including states as far east as Utah and Colorado. It is named after the creek near where it started. Dixie is considered a racist word in Utah.
August 8 - Volleyball at the 2020 Summer Olympics - Women's tournament: The United States defeats the two-time reigning Olympic Champions Brazil. Becoming the first to win Gold in Tokyo.
August 9 - Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announces that all service members will be required to get vaccinated by mid-September.
August 9 - The CDC announces that 60% of Americans have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
August 9 – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases the first part of its Sixth Assessment Report, which concludes that the effects of human-caused climate change are now "widespread, rapid, and intensifying".
August 9 - Sir Lester Bird, 2nd Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, dies at age 83. He was born in New York City. His father Sir Vere Bird was the 1st Prime Minister.
August 10 - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announces he will resign effective August 24 after an inquiry found he sexually harassed multiple women. He also sent thousands of sick patients to nursing homes, but was never punished for it. New York was the first state with 40,000 deaths by January 2021, but California was the first with 50,000 deaths by February 2021. Initially, under Governor Cuomo, New York counted only those COVID-19 deaths that occurred in hospitals, nursing homes, and adult care facilities. This excluded people who died at home or in other locations. Following Cuomo's resignation, beginning on August 24, 2021, New York began using the death certificate data provided to the CDC, which includes deaths in any location within the state. This increased New York's death toll by nearly 12,000; the newly totaled number of deaths up to that point was 55,395.
August 10 - The Senate votes 69-30 to pass the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill.
August 10 - Dominion Voting Systems sues conservative news channels One America News Network and Newsmax, plus former Overstock.com CEO Patrick M. Byrne, claiming they promoted false conspiracy theories about them after the 2020 presidential election.
August 11 - Aubrey de Grey, a leading anti-aging researcher and Chief Science Officer of the SENS Research Foundation, is placed on leave by his company, following sexual harassment allegations by two women in the field.
August 11 - The Senate votes to pass a $3.5 trillion reconciliation package, a day after the bipartisan infrastructure package passed.
August 11 - The Senate votes unanimously to confirm former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, making him the first of Biden's Ambassador nominees to be confirmed.
August 12 – The Census Bureau reports that, per the results of the 2020 census, the population of White Americans declined for the first time in history, and population growth is at its lowest since the Great Depression. Conversely, Hispanic, Asian, and Multiracial Americans saw the largest growth, with the latter seeing an increase of 276%. Hispanics make up the largest group in California for the first time, with whites in Texas barely remaining the largest by 0.4%. The Southern and Western regions also saw the most growth.
August 12 – The 2021 Zambian general election is held.
August 13 - Michigan surpasses 20,000 deaths from COVID-19.
August 13 - In Texas, multiple appeals courts uphold the mask mandates imposed in Bexar, Dallas, Harris, and Travis counties in an effort to override Governor Greg Abbott's ban on them in schools.
August 13 - The New York State Assembly says that it won't impeach Governor Andrew Cuomo following his announcement that he would resign.
August 13 - Bob Dylan is accused of sexual assault and related offenses in 1965 by a woman identified as "J.C." who files a lawsuit against the singer. Dylan denies the allegations.
August 13 - Carolyn S. Shoemaker, American astronomer, dies at age 92 after a fall. She was a co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9. She discovered 32 comets (then a record for the most by an individual) and more than 500 asteroids. Having earned degrees in history, political science, and English literature, she had little interest in science until she met and married geologist Eugene Merle Shoemaker. Her career in astronomy began when she demonstrated good stereoscopic vision, a particularly valuable quality for looking for objects in near-Earth space. Despite the fact that her degrees were not in science, having that visual ability motivated the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) to hire her as a research assistant on a team led by her husband. She went on to making record-setting discoveries in the field of astronomy, as well as being awarded honorary degrees and many professional awards.
August 14 - President Biden authorizes 5,000 U.S. troops to be deployed in Afghanistan, as the Taliban seize all regional capitals except Kabul.
August 14 - Texas Governor Greg Abbott tests positive for COVID-19. His office says he is fully vaccinated.
August 14 - Colorado Governor Jared Polis rescinds two proclamations dating from the 1860s that authorized settlers to kill "hostile Indians", which lead to the Sand Creek massacre.
August 14 – A 7.2-magnitude earthquake strikes Haiti, killing more than 2,100 people.
August 14 – Carlos Correia, 5th Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau, dies at age 87.
August 15 – 2021 Taliban offensive: The Taliban capture Kabul; the Afghan government surrenders to the Taliban.
August 15 - Abdelhamid Brahimi, 3rd Prime Minister of Algeria, dies at age 85. He wrote several books, particularly about violence in Algeria.
August 16 – Volodymyr Holubnychy, Soviet and Ukrainian race walker and Olympic champion, dies at age 85. He dominated the 20-kilometer race walk in the 1960s and 1970s, winning four Olympic medals from 1960 to 1972 and finishing seventh in 1976. He became Olympic champion in 1960 and 1968. He is regarded as one of the greatest race walkers of all time and competed at the Olympics on five occasions in 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972 and 1976.
August 17 – Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, dies at age 48. He was hit by a French drone while riding a motorcycle with another person. On October 4, 2019, the United States offered a $5 million reward under the Rewards for Justice program for information on his whereabouts. Al-Sahrawi was said to have married a Fulani woman, in order to better integrate with cross-border communities.
August 18 – R&B singer R. Kelly begins his trial at New York's Eastern District federal court, accused of racketeering, sexual abuse and bribery, all of which he denies.
August 19 - The Library of Congress, U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Capitol, and nearby congressional offices in Washington, DC are evacuated due to a bomb threat by the driver of a suspicious vehicle.
August 19 - Times Square in New York is evacuated due to a suspicious package.
August 19 – Sonny Chiba, Japanese actor and martial artist, dies at age 82 from COVID-19. Before retiring, Chiba had starred in Kill Bill: Volume 1, and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Christian Slater's character Clarence Worley in True Romance is a fan of Chiba. In a pivotal early scene, he watches a Sonny Chiba triple feature. The writer of True Romance, Quentin Tarantino, worked with Chiba ten years later in Kill Bill: Volume I. A modified version of the opening scroll to the English-language version of 1973 movie Karate Kiba (English title: The Bodyguard) was used in the script of Quentin Tarantino's 1994 movie Pulp Fiction. Tarantino's script changed the Ezekiel 25:17 speech, swapping out "I am Chiba the Bodyguard" for "my name is the Lord". The character Takayuki Chiba from the shōnen manga series Kengan Ashura is based upon Chiba and Hiroyuki Sanada.
August 20 – The Alameda County Superior Court rules that California Proposition 22 (2020), which exempts app-based transportation and delivery companies like Uber and DoorDash from having to classify their workers as employees, is unconstitutional. The defendants, consisting of a coalition of gig economy companies, say they will appeal.
August 21 - Don Everly, American musician, dies at age 84. He and his brother Phil formed The Everly Brothers. In the 1940s they sang with their parents and were known as "The Everly Family".
August 21 - Marie, Princess of Liechtenstein, dies at age 81 after a stroke. She was the wife of Prince Hans-Adam II. By birth, she was a member of the House of Kinsky.
August 22 – Antifa and the Proud Boys clash at an abandoned Kmart in Portland, Oregon.
August 23 – The FDA gives approval to the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (Comirnaty) for those aged 16 years and older.
August 24 - The U.S. Supreme Court restores the Trump-era Remain in Mexico policy, which requires migrants seeking asylum to remain in Mexico until their US immigration court date.
August 24 - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's resignation becomes official at midnight and Kathy Hochul becomes the first female New York Governor.
August 24 - Hissène Habré, 1st Prime Minister and 5th President of Chad, dies at age 79 from COVID-19. Having become the country's new president, Habré created a dictatorial one-party state notorious for widespread human rights abuses ruled by his National Union for Independence and Revolution. He was brought to power with the support of France and the United States, who provided training, arms, and financing throughout his rule due to his opposition to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. He led the country during the Libyan-Chadian conflict, culminating in victory during the Toyota War from 1986 to 1987 with French support. He was overthrown three years later in the 1990 Chadian coup d'état by Idriss Déby. In May 2016, Habré was found guilty by an international tribunal in Senegal of human-rights abuses, including rape, sexual slavery, and ordering the killing of 40,000 people, and sentenced to life in prison. He was the first former head of state to be convicted for human rights abuses in the court of another nation.
August 24 - Charlie Watts, English drummer, dies at age 80. He achieved international fame as the drummer of the Rolling Stones from 1963 until his death in 2021. In 1989, Watts was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2004, he was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame with the Rolling Stones. He is often regarded as one of the greatest drummers of all time.
August 24–September 5 – The 2020 Summer Paralympics were held in Tokyo, Japan. They were originally scheduled for August 25–September 6, 2020, but were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
August 25 – U.S. District Judge Linda Vivienne Parker announces sanctions against Sidney Powell, L. Lin Wood, and other lawyers who were filing a lawsuit seeking to overturn President Biden's victory in Michigan last year. She also orders the lawyers to be referred to their home states for disbarment or suspension of law license.
August 25 – Mohsin Ahmad al-Aini, 7th Prime Minister of Yemen, dies at age 88.
August 26 – Operation Allies Refuge: President Biden, in an address to the nation, says that the evacuation of American citizens will continue despite the terrorist attacks. He also vows that the U.S. will avenge the deaths of the 13 service members killed in the attacks by "hunting down" those responsible and "making them pay".
August 27 – The United States launches an airstrike killing the Islamic State member who is believed to have planned the Kabul airport bombings.
August 29 – Hurricane Ida makes landfall at 11:55 am CDT near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Ida was a deadly and destructive Category 4 Atlantic hurricane that became the second-most damaging and intense hurricane to make landfall in the state of Louisiana on record, behind Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In terms of maximum sustained winds at landfall (150 mph, Ida tied 2020's Hurricane Laura and the 1856 Last Island hurricane as the strongest on record in the state. A total of 115 deaths have been contributed to Ida, including 95 in the United States and 20 in Venezuela.
August 29 - Ed Asner, American actor, dies at age 91 of natural causes. He is best remembered for portraying Lou Grant during the 1970s and early 1980s, on both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off series Lou Grant, making him one of the few television actors to portray the same character in both a comedy and a drama. He is the most honored male performer in the history of the Primetime Emmy Awards, having won seven – five for portraying Lou Grant (three as Supporting Actor in a Comedy Television Series on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and two as Lead Actor in a Dramatic Television Series on spin-off Lou Grant). His other Emmys were for performances in two television miniseries: Rich Man, Poor Man (1976), where he won for Outstanding Lead Actor for a Single Performance in a television series, and Roots (1977), for which he won for Outstanding Single Performance by a Supporting Actor in a television series. He also played John Wayne's adversary Bart Jason in the 1966 Western El Dorado. Asner played Santa Claus in several films, including in 2003's Elf. In 2007, he voiced the main villain Krad in Christmas Is Here Again. In 2009, he voiced Carl Fredricksen in Pixar's animated film Up and made a guest appearance on CSI: NY in the episode "Yahrzeit". In early 2011, Asner returned to television as butcher Hank Greziak in Working Class, the first original sitcom on cable channel CMT. Asner guest-starred as Guy Redmayne in the sixth season of The Good Wife.
August 29 - Jacques Rogge, Belgian Olympic sailor and 8th President of the International Olympic Committee, dies at age 79 from Parkinson's disease. Rogge was born in Ghent, Belgium, during the Nazi Germany occupation. At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Rogge became the first ever IOC President to stay in the Olympic village, thereby enjoying closer contact with the athletes.
August 30 – Operation Allies Refuge: The United States withdraws its remaining 2,500 troops from Afghanistan, ending its 20-year involvement in the War in Afghanistan.
August 30 - The UN Environment Programme announces that leaded petrol in road vehicles has been phased out globally, a hundred years after its introduction.
August 30 - The United States withdraws its last remaining troops from Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, ending 20 years of operations in Afghanistan.
August 18 – R&B singer R. Kelly begins his trial at New York's Eastern District federal court, accused of racketeering, sexual abuse and bribery, all of which he denies.
August 19 - The Library of Congress, U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Capitol, and nearby congressional offices in Washington, DC are evacuated due to a bomb threat by the driver of a suspicious vehicle.
August 19 - Times Square in New York is evacuated due to a suspicious package.
August 19 – Sonny Chiba, Japanese actor and martial artist, dies at age 82 from COVID-19. Before retiring, Chiba had starred in Kill Bill: Volume 1, and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Christian Slater's character Clarence Worley in True Romance is a fan of Chiba. In a pivotal early scene, he watches a Sonny Chiba triple feature. The writer of True Romance, Quentin Tarantino, worked with Chiba ten years later in Kill Bill: Volume I. A modified version of the opening scroll to the English-language version of 1973 movie Karate Kiba (English title: The Bodyguard) was used in the script of Quentin Tarantino's 1994 movie Pulp Fiction. Tarantino's script changed the Ezekiel 25:17 speech, swapping out "I am Chiba the Bodyguard" for "my name is the Lord". The character Takayuki Chiba from the shōnen manga series Kengan Ashura is based upon Chiba and Hiroyuki Sanada.
August 20 – The Alameda County Superior Court rules that California Proposition 22 (2020), which exempts app-based transportation and delivery companies like Uber and DoorDash from having to classify their workers as employees, is unconstitutional. The defendants, consisting of a coalition of gig economy companies, say they will appeal.
August 21 - Don Everly, American musician, dies at age 84. He and his brother Phil formed The Everly Brothers. In the 1940s they sang with their parents and were known as "The Everly Family".
August 21 - Marie, Princess of Liechtenstein, dies at age 81 after a stroke. She was the wife of Prince Hans-Adam II. By birth, she was a member of the House of Kinsky.
August 22 – Antifa and the Proud Boys clash at an abandoned Kmart in Portland, Oregon.
August 23 – The FDA gives approval to the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (Comirnaty) for those aged 16 years and older.
August 24 - The U.S. Supreme Court restores the Trump-era Remain in Mexico policy, which requires migrants seeking asylum to remain in Mexico until their US immigration court date.
August 24 - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's resignation becomes official at midnight and Kathy Hochul becomes the first female New York Governor.
August 24 - Hissène Habré, 1st Prime Minister and 5th President of Chad, dies at age 79 from COVID-19. Having become the country's new president, Habré created a dictatorial one-party state notorious for widespread human rights abuses ruled by his National Union for Independence and Revolution. He was brought to power with the support of France and the United States, who provided training, arms, and financing throughout his rule due to his opposition to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. He led the country during the Libyan-Chadian conflict, culminating in victory during the Toyota War from 1986 to 1987 with French support. He was overthrown three years later in the 1990 Chadian coup d'état by Idriss Déby. In May 2016, Habré was found guilty by an international tribunal in Senegal of human-rights abuses, including rape, sexual slavery, and ordering the killing of 40,000 people, and sentenced to life in prison. He was the first former head of state to be convicted for human rights abuses in the court of another nation.
August 24 - Charlie Watts, English drummer, dies at age 80. He achieved international fame as the drummer of the Rolling Stones from 1963 until his death in 2021. In 1989, Watts was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2004, he was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame with the Rolling Stones. He is often regarded as one of the greatest drummers of all time.
August 24–September 5 – The 2020 Summer Paralympics were held in Tokyo, Japan. They were originally scheduled for August 25–September 6, 2020, but were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
August 25 – U.S. District Judge Linda Vivienne Parker announces sanctions against Sidney Powell, L. Lin Wood, and other lawyers who were filing a lawsuit seeking to overturn President Biden's victory in Michigan last year. She also orders the lawyers to be referred to their home states for disbarment or suspension of law license.
August 25 – Mohsin Ahmad al-Aini, 7th Prime Minister of Yemen, dies at age 88.
August 26 – Operation Allies Refuge: President Biden, in an address to the nation, says that the evacuation of American citizens will continue despite the terrorist attacks. He also vows that the U.S. will avenge the deaths of the 13 service members killed in the attacks by "hunting down" those responsible and "making them pay".
August 27 – The United States launches an airstrike killing the Islamic State member who is believed to have planned the Kabul airport bombings.
August 29 – Hurricane Ida makes landfall at 11:55 am CDT near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Ida was a deadly and destructive Category 4 Atlantic hurricane that became the second-most damaging and intense hurricane to make landfall in the state of Louisiana on record, behind Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In terms of maximum sustained winds at landfall (150 mph, Ida tied 2020's Hurricane Laura and the 1856 Last Island hurricane as the strongest on record in the state. A total of 115 deaths have been contributed to Ida, including 95 in the United States and 20 in Venezuela.
August 29 - Ed Asner, American actor, dies at age 91 of natural causes. He is best remembered for portraying Lou Grant during the 1970s and early 1980s, on both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off series Lou Grant, making him one of the few television actors to portray the same character in both a comedy and a drama. He is the most honored male performer in the history of the Primetime Emmy Awards, having won seven – five for portraying Lou Grant (three as Supporting Actor in a Comedy Television Series on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and two as Lead Actor in a Dramatic Television Series on spin-off Lou Grant). His other Emmys were for performances in two television miniseries: Rich Man, Poor Man (1976), where he won for Outstanding Lead Actor for a Single Performance in a television series, and Roots (1977), for which he won for Outstanding Single Performance by a Supporting Actor in a television series. He also played John Wayne's adversary Bart Jason in the 1966 Western El Dorado. Asner played Santa Claus in several films, including in 2003's Elf. In 2007, he voiced the main villain Krad in Christmas Is Here Again. In 2009, he voiced Carl Fredricksen in Pixar's animated film Up and made a guest appearance on CSI: NY in the episode "Yahrzeit". In early 2011, Asner returned to television as butcher Hank Greziak in Working Class, the first original sitcom on cable channel CMT. Asner guest-starred as Guy Redmayne in the sixth season of The Good Wife.
August 29 - Jacques Rogge, Belgian Olympic sailor and 8th President of the International Olympic Committee, dies at age 79 from Parkinson's disease. Rogge was born in Ghent, Belgium, during the Nazi Germany occupation. At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Rogge became the first ever IOC President to stay in the Olympic village, thereby enjoying closer contact with the athletes.
August 30 – Operation Allies Refuge: The United States withdraws its remaining 2,500 troops from Afghanistan, ending its 20-year involvement in the War in Afghanistan.
August 30 - The UN Environment Programme announces that leaded petrol in road vehicles has been phased out globally, a hundred years after its introduction.
August 30 - The United States withdraws its last remaining troops from Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, ending 20 years of operations in Afghanistan.
SEPTEMBER
September 1 - Texas implements the "Heartbeat Act" banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
September 1 - Texas residents are allowed to carry handguns without a license or training.
September 1 - The Department of Justice secures its 50th guilty plea in its criminal investigation of the January 6 riot at the Capitol.
September 1 - A state of emergency is declared in New York City after record rainfall and flash flooding shuts down much of the city's transportation system, caused by Tropical Storm Ida.
September 2 - More than 54 deaths are reported in New York and the wider northeastern United States amid the ongoing flood emergency caused by Hurricane Ida, as rescuers continue to search for stranded people.
September 2 - The Vine Street Expressway in Philadelphia is closed due to massive flooding on portions of the highway from Hurricane Ida. The Park Towne Place residential complex is also evacuated due to flooding.
September 3 - Jake Angeli, the so-called "QAnon Shaman" pleads guilty to obstructing a proceeding of Congress on January 6.
September 3 - Texas Heartbeat Act: Texas state judge Guerra Gamble blocks the Texas Right To Life from suing Planned Parenthood under the pretext of the abortion law.
September 5 - A former Marine sharpshooter shot and killed three adults, an infant, and a dog and wounded a child inside and outside a home in Lakeland, Florida, before engaging in a shootout with police. The shooter was eventually injured in the gunfight and then apprehended.
September 5 - Firefighters discovered a husband and wife and two children deceased when responding to a house fire in Houston. Family members believe the family had been dead for days before the fire.
September 5 – 2021 Guinean coup d'état: Guinea's President Alpha Condé is detained by an elite military unit led by a former French legionnaire, Lt. Col. Mamady Doumbouya, claiming to have seized power.
September 5 - Ivan Patzaichin, Romanian Olympic canoeist, dies at age 71 from lung cancer. He took part in all major competitions between 1968 and 1984, including five consecutive Olympics, and won seven Olympic and 22 world championship medals, including four Olympic gold medals. This makes him the most decorated Romanian canoeist of all time. He later worked as a canoeing coach, attending five more Olympics in this capacity. In 1990 he was awarded the Olympic Order, and in 2006 a nationwide poll included him on the list 100 Greatest Romanians of all time.
September 5 - Živko Radišić, 2nd Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, dies at age 84 in a hospital.
September 7 – El Salvador becomes the first country in the world to accept Bitcoin as an official currency.
September 8 – The Robert E. Lee Monument on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, is removed and sent to storage. The monument honored Confederate Civil War General Robert E. Lee depicted on a horse atop a large marble base that stood over 60-feet tall. Constructed in France and shipped to Virginia, it remained the largest installation on Monument Avenue for over a century; it was first listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007 and the Virginia Landmarks Register in 2006.
September 8 – Dietmar Lorenz, German Olympic judoka, dies at age 70. He won as the first German at the Olympics and the Jigoro Kano Cup. As a member of the East German Olympic team, he took part in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. These games were boycotted by some countries, including Japan, whose Yasuhiro Yamashita and Sumio Endo were the reigning World Heavyweight and Open Class champions respectively.
September 9 - President Biden issues new federal vaccine requirements affecting up to 100 million Americans. All employers with more than 100 workers are required to be either vaccinated or test for the virus weekly, while 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid are ordered to be fully vaccinated.
September 9 - Texas Governor Greg Abbott signs a bill that prohibits social media sites from banning or restricting users based on "the viewpoint of the user or another person," whether or not that viewpoint is expressed on the social media platform itself.
September 10 – Trump–Ukraine scandal: Former Rudy Giuliani associate Igor Fruman pleads guilty to one count of soliciting a contribution by a foreign national.
September 10 - Charles Konan Banny, 6th Prime Minister of the Ivory Coast, dies at age 78 from COVID-19.
September 10 - Jorge Sampaio, 18th President of Portugal, dies at age 81 from respiratory failure, eight days before his 82nd birthday. He was an opponent to the dictatorship of Estado Novo, who participated in the student crisis in the 1960s and was a lawyer for political prisoners. When he was President, he had an important role in the 1999 East Timorese crisis and under his presidency, Portugal relinquished its last territory in Asia, Macau, which was handed over to China.
September 11 - Commemorations take place around the country to mark the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. A minute's silence is held at the World Trade Center site at the exact time each hijacked plane crashed, and the names of the victims were read.
September 11 - British tennis player Emma Raducanu defeats Canadian Leylah Fernandez in the Women's Singles US Open with a score of 6–4, 6–3, becoming the first player in the Open Era to win a major tournament after coming through qualifiers.
September 11 – Abimael Guzmán, Peruvian Maoist leader and militant, dies at age 86. Also known by his nom de guerre Chairman Gonzalo (Spanish: Presidente Gonzalo), was a Peruvian Maoist revolutionary and guerrilla leader, considered a terrorist by various governments during his lifetime. He founded the organization Communist Party of Peru – Shining Path (PCP-SL) in 1969 and led rebellion against the Peruvian government until his capture by authorities in September 1992. He was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment for terrorism and treason. In the 1960s and 1970s, Guzmán was a professor of philosophy active in left-wing revolutionary politics and strongly influenced by Marxism, Leninism, and Maoism. He developed an ideology of armed struggle stressing the empowerment of the indigenous people. He went underground in the mid-1970s to become the leader of the Shining Path, which began "The Peruvian People's War" or the "Armed Struggle" on May 17, 1980. Guzmán's body was cremated on the dawn of September 24, 2021 and his ashes were dispersed in a secret location in order to prevent a shrine honoring him from being created.
September 12 - An SUV with four deceased adults was found in a local cornfield in Wheeler, Wisconsin. It was discovered later that the four victims were shot in Saint Paul, Minnesota, following an argument at a bar with the shooter. The perpetrator's father followed his son in a vehicle on the way to Wheeler and then gave his son a ride home after his son abandoned the SUV in the cornfield.
September 13 - In New York City, schools reopen to one million children for the first time since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
September 13 - Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Anwar Ibrahim, the leader of the main Malaysian opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan, sign a confidence and supply agreement ending the 18-month political crisis that has led to the fall of two successive governments in Malaysia.
September 13 - The 2021 Norwegian parliamentary election is held.
September 13 - Borisav Jović, 12th President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia, dies at age 92 from COVID-19. Jović received his PhD in economics from the University of Belgrade in 1965. He was a fluent speaker of Russian and Italian. Jović viewed the reformist former Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Marković, a Bosnian Croat, as responsible for destroying the country and of being a puppet of the capitalist west.
September 14 – A recall election is held in California on whether Governor Gavin Newsom should remain in office, and who his successor should be if he is voted out. Newsom defeats the recall and remains in office. 61.88% of voters opposed the recall.
September 14 - North Korea demonstrates two short-range ballistic missiles that land just outside Japan's territorial waters; and then only hours later South Korea demonstrates its first submarine-launched ballistic missile.
September 8 – The Robert E. Lee Monument on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, is removed and sent to storage. The monument honored Confederate Civil War General Robert E. Lee depicted on a horse atop a large marble base that stood over 60-feet tall. Constructed in France and shipped to Virginia, it remained the largest installation on Monument Avenue for over a century; it was first listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007 and the Virginia Landmarks Register in 2006.
September 8 – Dietmar Lorenz, German Olympic judoka, dies at age 70. He won as the first German at the Olympics and the Jigoro Kano Cup. As a member of the East German Olympic team, he took part in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. These games were boycotted by some countries, including Japan, whose Yasuhiro Yamashita and Sumio Endo were the reigning World Heavyweight and Open Class champions respectively.
September 9 - President Biden issues new federal vaccine requirements affecting up to 100 million Americans. All employers with more than 100 workers are required to be either vaccinated or test for the virus weekly, while 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid are ordered to be fully vaccinated.
September 9 - Texas Governor Greg Abbott signs a bill that prohibits social media sites from banning or restricting users based on "the viewpoint of the user or another person," whether or not that viewpoint is expressed on the social media platform itself.
September 10 – Trump–Ukraine scandal: Former Rudy Giuliani associate Igor Fruman pleads guilty to one count of soliciting a contribution by a foreign national.
September 10 - Charles Konan Banny, 6th Prime Minister of the Ivory Coast, dies at age 78 from COVID-19.
September 10 - Jorge Sampaio, 18th President of Portugal, dies at age 81 from respiratory failure, eight days before his 82nd birthday. He was an opponent to the dictatorship of Estado Novo, who participated in the student crisis in the 1960s and was a lawyer for political prisoners. When he was President, he had an important role in the 1999 East Timorese crisis and under his presidency, Portugal relinquished its last territory in Asia, Macau, which was handed over to China.
September 11 - Commemorations take place around the country to mark the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. A minute's silence is held at the World Trade Center site at the exact time each hijacked plane crashed, and the names of the victims were read.
September 11 - British tennis player Emma Raducanu defeats Canadian Leylah Fernandez in the Women's Singles US Open with a score of 6–4, 6–3, becoming the first player in the Open Era to win a major tournament after coming through qualifiers.
September 11 – Abimael Guzmán, Peruvian Maoist leader and militant, dies at age 86. Also known by his nom de guerre Chairman Gonzalo (Spanish: Presidente Gonzalo), was a Peruvian Maoist revolutionary and guerrilla leader, considered a terrorist by various governments during his lifetime. He founded the organization Communist Party of Peru – Shining Path (PCP-SL) in 1969 and led rebellion against the Peruvian government until his capture by authorities in September 1992. He was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment for terrorism and treason. In the 1960s and 1970s, Guzmán was a professor of philosophy active in left-wing revolutionary politics and strongly influenced by Marxism, Leninism, and Maoism. He developed an ideology of armed struggle stressing the empowerment of the indigenous people. He went underground in the mid-1970s to become the leader of the Shining Path, which began "The Peruvian People's War" or the "Armed Struggle" on May 17, 1980. Guzmán's body was cremated on the dawn of September 24, 2021 and his ashes were dispersed in a secret location in order to prevent a shrine honoring him from being created.
September 12 - An SUV with four deceased adults was found in a local cornfield in Wheeler, Wisconsin. It was discovered later that the four victims were shot in Saint Paul, Minnesota, following an argument at a bar with the shooter. The perpetrator's father followed his son in a vehicle on the way to Wheeler and then gave his son a ride home after his son abandoned the SUV in the cornfield.
September 13 - In New York City, schools reopen to one million children for the first time since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
September 13 - Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Anwar Ibrahim, the leader of the main Malaysian opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan, sign a confidence and supply agreement ending the 18-month political crisis that has led to the fall of two successive governments in Malaysia.
September 13 - The 2021 Norwegian parliamentary election is held.
September 13 - Borisav Jović, 12th President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia, dies at age 92 from COVID-19. Jović received his PhD in economics from the University of Belgrade in 1965. He was a fluent speaker of Russian and Italian. Jović viewed the reformist former Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Marković, a Bosnian Croat, as responsible for destroying the country and of being a puppet of the capitalist west.
September 14 – A recall election is held in California on whether Governor Gavin Newsom should remain in office, and who his successor should be if he is voted out. Newsom defeats the recall and remains in office. 61.88% of voters opposed the recall.
September 14 - North Korea demonstrates two short-range ballistic missiles that land just outside Japan's territorial waters; and then only hours later South Korea demonstrates its first submarine-launched ballistic missile.
September 14 - Norm Macdonald, Canadian comedian, actor, and screenwriter, dies at age 61 from acute leukemia. He was known for his style of deadpan humor and interjecting poetic, sometimes old-fashioned turns of phrase. Throughout his career, he appeared in numerous films and was a regular favorite comedian panelist of talk show hosts, with many considering him to be the ultimate late night comedy guest. Early in his career, Macdonald's first work in television included writing for such comedies as Roseanne and The Dennis Miller Show. In 1993, Macdonald was hired as a writer and cast member on Saturday Night Live (SNL), spending a total of five seasons on the series, which included anchoring the show's Weekend Update segment for three and a half seasons. Between 2013 and 2018, Macdonald hosted the talk shows Norm Macdonald Live (a video podcast) and Norm Macdonald Has a Show (a Netflix series), on which he interviewed comedians and other celebrities. In 2016, he authored Based on a True Story, a novel that presented a heavily fictionalized account of his life. His film roles included: Billy Madison, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Dr. Dolittle, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, Man on the Moon, The Animal, Dr. Dolittle 2, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Dr. Dolittle 3, Dr. Dolittle: Tail to the Chief, Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts, Grown Ups, Jack & Jill, and Klaus.
September 14 - Yuriy Sedykh, Soviet and Russian track and field athlete and Olympic champion, dies at age 66 in France. He was a European, World, and Olympic Champion, and holds the world record with a throw of 86.74 m in 1986. Sedykh won gold medals at the 1976 Summer Olympics and 1980 Summer Olympics as well as taking first at the 1986 Goodwill Games. Previously married to Soviet 100 m hurdles Olympic champion Lyudmila Kondratyeva, Sedykh subsequently married former Soviet shot-putter and world-record holder Natalya Lisovskaya who won gold in the 1988 Olympics. They had one daughter, Alexia, born in 1993, who came first in the girls' hammer throw at the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics in Singapore. Sedykh and his family moved to Paris, France, where he taught strength and conditioning at higher education level.
September 15 - AUKUS: A trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States is formed, to counter the influence of China. This includes enabling Australia to build its first nuclear-powered submarine fleet.
September 15 - Several ministers of the Argentine president Alberto Fernández's cabinet resign after the government's defeat in the primary elections, triggering a political crisis in the country.
September 16 – Inspiration4, launched by SpaceX, becomes the first all-civilian spaceflight, carrying a four-person crew on a three-day orbit of the Earth.
September 16 - Silas Atopare, 7th Governor-General of Papua New Guinea, dies at age 70 during the 46th Independence Day celebrations. Atopare was a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In 1998, he was knighted as a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George. He had to bring order when violence and controversy marred the electoral process in PNG's oil and gas rich Southern Highlands Province.
September 16 - Casimir Oyé-Mba, 3rd Prime Minister of Gabon, dies at age 79 in Paris from COVID-19. He also served as Governor of the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) from 1978 to 1990.
September 17 - For the first time ever France has recalled its ambassador to the U.S., according to the French foreign ministry. Paris also recalled its envoy to Australia.
September 17 - Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 7th President of Algeria, dies at age 84 from cardiac arrest. He served as President of the United Nations General Assembly during the 1974–1975 session. In 1983 he was convicted of stealing millions of dinars from Algerian embassies during his diplomatic career. As President, he presided over the end of the Algerian Civil War in 2002 when he took over the project of his immediate predecessor President Liamine Zéroual, and he ended emergency rule in February 2011 amidst regional unrest. Following a stroke in 2013, Bouteflika had made few public appearances throughout his fourth term, making his final appearance in 2017. Bouteflika resigned on April 2, 2019 after months of mass protests. With nearly 20 years in power, he is the longest-serving head of state of Algeria to date. Following his resignation, Bouteflika became a recluse.
September 19 – The 2021 Russian legislative election is held, with the United Russia party winning nearly 50% of the vote.
September 20 - Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg makes an appearance at the New York Supreme Court as prosecutors continue their investigation into former President Trump's business dealings.
September 20 - The death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic surpasses that of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, becoming the deadliest disease outbreak in American history. Although there are about 3 times as many people now so the percentage was higher then.
September 20 – The 2021 Canadian federal election is held, with Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party retaining a minority government.
September 21 - President Biden delivers his first speech at the United Nations General Assembly.
September 21 - Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer announces that Michigan will build an electrified road to charge electric vehicles, becoming the first U.S. state to do so.
September 21 – Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Egyptian field marshal, Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, dies at age 85 following a period of ill health. He was the de facto head of state from the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011 until the inauguration of Mohamed Morsi as president of Egypt on June 30, 2012. Tantawi served in the government as Minister of Defense and Military Production from 1991 until Morsi ordered him to retire on August 12, 2012. In 1991, he commanded an Egyptian Army unit in the U.S.-led Gulf War against Iraq to force Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, which it had invaded in 1990.
September 22 - Michigan surpasses one million confirmed cases of COVID-19.
September 22 - Abdelkader Bensalah, Acting Head of State of Algeria, dies at age 79 from cancer and COVID-19. He served as the President of the Council of the Nation, the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Algeria, between 2002 and 2019.
September 22 - Orlando Martínez, Cuban boxer and Olympic champion, dies at age 77. He won the gold medal at the 1972 Summer Olympics. Three years later he captured the gold at the 1975 Pan American Games. Martínez was awarded a hotly disputed 3–2 split decision over Great Britain's George Turpin in the 1972 Munich Olympics semifinal before coasting to a comfortable points win over future professional world bantamweight champion Alfonso Zamora in the final to win the division's gold medal.
September 23 - A man shoots 13 people at a Kroger grocery store then kills himself in Collierville, Tennessee. One of the victims died. One other individual checked into a hospital due to an anxiety attack.
September 23 - A months-long and widely criticized recount of 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County, Arizona, confirms in a draft report that Joe Biden won that state's 11 electoral votes, with no mass voter fraud designed to steal the election from former President Donald Trump.
September 23 - The U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol issues its first subpoenas, which mandate that four advisors and associates to former President Donald Trump turn over records and testimony. The targets of the subpoenas are former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Dan Scavino, former Defense Department official Kashyap Patel, and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.
September 24 - The U.S. House votes to pass the Women's Health Protection Act, an abortion rights bill, in response to the Supreme Court refusing to block the Texas Heartbeat Act from becoming law.
September 24 - Fox News announces that it has banned Rudy Giuliani and his son Andrew Giuliani from appearing on the channel for three months.
September 25 - Two adults arrived at a home in Athens, Tennessee, and engaged in an argument with the four adults there over a 10-month-old. The dispute escalated and the four adults living at the home were killed and the two suspects kidnapped the child.
September 25 – A train derails in Montana, killing three people.
September 25 – The 2021 Icelandic parliamentary election is held.
September 25 – Théoneste Bagosora, Rwandan military officer and convicted war criminal, dies at age 80. He was chiefly known for his key role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). In 2011, the sentence was reduced to 35 years' imprisonment on appeal. He was due to be imprisoned until he was 89. According to René Lemarchand, Bagosora was "the chief organizer of the killings". He died in a prison hospital in Mali, where he was being treated for heart issues.
September 26 - Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker kicks a 66-yard field goal during the team's 19-17 victory against the Detroit Lions, making it the longest field goal in National Football League history.
September 26 – The 2021 German federal election is held, with the Social Democratic Party beating out the CDU/CSU coalition.
September 25 - Two adults arrived at a home in Athens, Tennessee, and engaged in an argument with the four adults there over a 10-month-old. The dispute escalated and the four adults living at the home were killed and the two suspects kidnapped the child.
September 25 – A train derails in Montana, killing three people.
September 25 – The 2021 Icelandic parliamentary election is held.
September 25 – Théoneste Bagosora, Rwandan military officer and convicted war criminal, dies at age 80. He was chiefly known for his key role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). In 2011, the sentence was reduced to 35 years' imprisonment on appeal. He was due to be imprisoned until he was 89. According to René Lemarchand, Bagosora was "the chief organizer of the killings". He died in a prison hospital in Mali, where he was being treated for heart issues.
September 26 - Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker kicks a 66-yard field goal during the team's 19-17 victory against the Detroit Lions, making it the longest field goal in National Football League history.
September 26 – The 2021 German federal election is held, with the Social Democratic Party beating out the CDU/CSU coalition.
September 27 - In Vermont, registration opens to people aged 75 years and older to receive the booster shot of the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
September 27 - In Washington D.C., President Biden receives his third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
September 27 - Grammy Award-winning singer R. Kelly is found guilty in a federal court on all counts of sexually abusing women and children over two decades.
September 27 - Ford announces an $11.4 billion plan for electric vehicle (EV) production, its largest ever investment in the US, with a major new factory in Tennessee and two battery parks in Kentucky creating nearly 11,000 jobs.
September 29 – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declares 23 species extinct, due to a combination of development, invasive species, logging and pollution.
September 30 - Britney Spears' father James Parnell Spears is formally suspended as the conservator of her estate.
September 30 - President Biden signs legislation that would extend funding for the U.S. government through December 3, thereby avoiding a government shutdown. Government funds were due to run out at midnight.
September 30 – Koichi Sugiyama, Japanese composer, conductor, and orchestrator, dies at age 90 from septic shock. He was known for composing the music for the Dragon Quest franchise, along with several other video games, anime, film, and television shows. Classically trained, Sugiyama was considered a major inspiration for other Japanese game music composers and was active in composition and orchestration from the 1960s until his death. He also engaged in activism outside of music, such as the denial of Japanese war crimes and the promotion of Japanese nationalism.
OCTOBER
October 1 – The Supreme Court announces that Brett Kavanaugh has tested positive for COVID-19.
October 1 – The 2020 World Expo in Dubai begins. Its opening was originally scheduled for October 20, 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
October 3 - A massive oil spill occurs off the coast of Huntington Beach, California, prompting many beach closures, and washing up dead birds and fish.
October 3 - Tom Brady becomes the fourth quarterback to defeat all 32 National Football League teams following the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 19-17 victory against his former team, the New England Patriots. He also surpasses Drew Brees as the NFL's all-time leading passer.
October 3 – The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and assorted media partners publish a set of 11.9 million documents leaked from 14 financial services companies known as the Pandora Papers, revealing offshore financial activities that involve multiple current and former world leaders.
October 3 - Budge Patty, American tennis player, dies at age 97 at a hospital in Switzerland. He was a world no. 1 tennis player, whose career spanned a period of 15 years after World War II. He won two Grand Slam singles titles in 1950. He was the second American male player to win the Channel Slam (winning the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year) and one of only three as of 2021.
October 3 - Lars Vilks, Swedish visual artist, dies at age 75 in a car crash in an unmarked police car with two officers. In 2007, Vilks caused an international controversy when he depicted Muhammad as a roundabout dog in three drawings, designated to be shown at an art exhibition at Tällerud, in July of the same year. Shortly before its opening, the organizers canceled their invitation with reference to serious security concerns, and despite Vilks' effort no other Swedish art gallery offered to exhibit his drawings. Eventually, on August 18, one of his drawings was published in the Örebro-based regional newspaper, Nerikes Allehanda, as part of an editorial on self-censorship and freedom of religion. He also created the sculptures Nimis and Arx, made of driftwood and rock, respectively. The area where the sculptures are located was proclaimed by Vilks as an independent country, "Ladonia".
October 4 – Fumio Kishida becomes the 100th Prime Minister of Japan, succeeding Yoshihide Suga.
October 5 - Windows 11 is launched by Microsoft.
October 5 - The president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, a police union representing the sergeants in the New York City Police Department, resigns following an FBI raid on his Long Island home.
October 5 - The U.S. Senate confirms Damian Williams as Attorney for the Southern District of New York, making him the first African American to lead the office.
October 5 – Roscosmos launches the Soyuz MS-19 mission, which carries an Expedition 66 crewmember and two Channel One Russia personnel to the International Space Station. The two Channel One crew will perform principal photography on the film Vyzov aboard the station.
October 6 - Case Breakers, a group of former law enforcement individuals, claim to have identified the Zodiac Killer as Gary Francis Poste, an individual who died in 2018. Their claim is disputed.
October 6 - United States federal judge Robert L. Pitman blocks the Texas Heartbeat Act from becoming law.
October 6 – The World Health Organization endorses the first malaria vaccine.
October 7 - The U.S. Senate votes 61–38 to overcome a filibuster and 50–48 to increase the federal debt.
October 7 - Eighteen former NBA players are charged with healthcare fraud, including Terrence Williams, Tony Allen, Shannon Brown, and Ronald Glen Davis.
October 8–9 – The 2021 Czech legislative election is held, with the main opposition coalition alliance of SPOLU and Pirates and Mayors gaining a legislative majority.
October 9 – Sebastian Kurz announces his resignation as Chancellor of Austria as a result of a corruption probe launched against him.
October 9 – Abolhassan Banisadr, 1st President of Iran, dies at age 88 in Paris after a long illness. In August and September 1980, Banisadr survived two helicopter crashes near the Iran–Iraq border. During the Iran–Iraq War, Banisadr was appointed acting commander-in-chief by Khomeini on June 10, 1981. In 1991, Banisadr released an English translation of his 1989 text My Turn to Speak: Iran, the Revolution and Secret Deals with the U.S. In the book, Banisadr alleged covert dealings between the Ronald Reagan presidential campaign and leaders in Tehran to prolong the Iran hostage crisis before the 1980 United States presidential election. He also claimed that Henry Kissinger plotted to set up a Palestinian state in the Iranian province of Khuzestan and that Zbigniew Brzezinski conspired with Saddam Hussein to plot Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran.
October 10 – Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistani nuclear physicist and engineer, dies at age 85 of lung problems from COVID-19. He was colloquially known as the "father of Pakistan's atomic weapons program". In January 2004, Khan was subjected to a debriefing by the Musharraf administration over evidence of nuclear proliferation handed to them by the Bush administration. Khan was accused of selling nuclear secrets illegally and was put under house arrest in 2004. After years of house arrest, Khan successfully filed a lawsuit against the Federal Government of Pakistan at the Islamabad High Court whose verdict declared his debriefing unconstitutional and freed him on February 6, 2009.
October 11 - The 2021 Boston Marathon takes place after it was rescheduled from April.
October 11 - Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden resigns after several e-mails between him and Bruce Allen containing racist, sexist, homophobic, and trans-phobic remarks are leaked by The New York Times.
October 11 - Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announces that the company will drop its return-to-office plan and allow its corporate employees to continue working remotely if they choose.
October 13 – Star Trek actor William Shatner becomes the oldest person to go into space, at age 90, on board the Blue Origin NS-18, launched from Texas.
October 14 – Lee Wan-koo, 39th Prime Minister of South Korea, dies at age 71 from multiple myeloma. From 1982 to 1984, he studied at Michigan State University and received an M. A. in Criminal Justice. From 1986 to 1989, Lee served as Consul for the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Los Angeles. On April 20, 2015, Lee offered to resign as Prime Minister, amid allegations of bribery. He formally stepped down on April 27, 2015, apologizing over a scandal in which he was accused of taking an illegal cash gift from Sung Wan-jong, a businessman. President Park Geun-hye accepted Lee's resignation. In January 2016, he was convicted of taking illegal funds by the Seoul Central District Court. However, in September 2016, he was acquitted by the Seoul High Court. In 2017, the Supreme Court upheld the Seoul High Court's acquittal of Lee.
October 16 – The Lucy spacecraft is launched by NASA, the first mission to explore the Trojan asteroids.
October 17 – Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai, Acting Prime Minister of Afghanistan, dies at age 77. He was an ethnic Pashtun from the Ahmadzai sub-tribe. He studied engineering at Kabul University and then worked in the agriculture ministry. In 1972 he received a scholarship to study at Colorado State University. He received a master's degree in 1975 and became a professor at King Faisal University in Saudi Arabia. Following the communist coup in 1978, Ahmadzai returned to Afghanistan to join the mujahideen. He served as a minister in the post-communist Afghan government, variously as interior, construction and education minister, and later became prime minister between 1995 and 1996, although he has downplayed the import of these posts given the chaos due to the fighting at that time. Ahmadzai left Afghanistan in 1996 after the government fled the Taliban advance. He lived in exile in Istanbul and London, before he returned to Afghanistan in 2001 after the fall of Taliban. He was an independent candidate in the 2004 Afghan presidential election supporting an Islamic system of government. He secured 0.8% of the total votes counted.
October 18 - 2021–22 NHL season: San Jose Sharks forward Evander Kane is suspended for 21 games for submitting a forged COVID-19 vaccination card.
October 18 - Murder of Ahmaud Arbery: The state trial of Travis McMichael, his father Gregory McMichael, and William "Roddie" Bryan begins in Georgia.
October 18 - János Kornai, Hungarian economist, dies at age 93. He is noted for his analysis and criticism of the command economies of Eastern European communist states. He also covered macroeconomic aspects in countries undergoing post-Soviet transition. He was emeritus professor at both Harvard University and Corvinus University of Budapest. Kornai was known to have coined the term shortage economy to reflect perpetual shortages of goods in the centrally-planned command economies of the Eastern Bloc. His family spent time in an internment camp during the Nazi occupation of Hungary. His father was sent for slave labor and later killed at Auschwitz. In 2018, the Corvinus University of Budapest organized a full-day conference in honor of his 90th birthday.
October 18 - Colin Powell, American politician, diplomat and general, dies at age 84 from multiple myeloma and COVID-19. He served as the 65th United States Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African-American Secretary of State. He served as the 16th United States national security advisor from 1987 to 1989 and as the 12th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993. Powell was born in New York City in 1937 to parents who had immigrated from Jamaica. He was raised in the South Bronx and educated in the New York City public schools, receiving a bachelor's degree in geology from the City College of New York (CCNY). He also participated in ROTC at CCNY and received a commission as an Army second lieutenant upon graduation in June 1958. He was a professional soldier for 35 years, during which time he held many command and staff positions and rose to the rank of four-star general. He was Commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command in 1989. Powell's last military assignment, from October 1989 to September 1993, was as Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, the highest military position in the United States Department of Defense. During this time, he oversaw 28 crises, including the invasion of Panama in 1989 and Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf War against Iraq in 1990–1991. He formulated the Powell Doctrine, which limits American military action unless it satisfies criteria regarding American national security interests, overwhelming force, and widespread public support. As Secretary of State, Powell gave a speech before the United Nations regarding the rationale for the Iraq War, but he later admitted that the speech contained substantial inaccuracies. He was forced to resign after Bush was reelected in 2004. In 1995, Powell wrote his autobiography, My American Journey, and then in retirement another book, It Worked for Me, Lessons in Life and Leadership (2012). He pursued a career as a public speaker, addressing audiences across the country and abroad. Before his appointment as Secretary of State, he chaired America's Promise. In the 2016 United States presidential election, Powell, who was not a candidate, received three electoral votes from Washington for the office of President of the United States. He won numerous U.S. and foreign military awards and decorations. His civilian awards included the Presidential Medal of Freedom (twice), the Congressional Gold Medal, the Presidential Citizens Medal, and the Secretary's Distinguished Service Award.
October 19 - The January 6 select committee investigating the riot on the U.S. Capitol votes to hold former Donald Trump White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon in criminal contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena issued by the select committee.
October 19 - The United States Department of Justice announces that U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry has been indicted for making false statements to federal authorities.
October 19 - The FBI announces that it has raided the house of Russian oligarch and Vladimir Putin ally Oleg Deripaska, who was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2018.
October 19 – Leslie Bricusse, British composer, lyricist and playwright, dies at age 90 in his sleep while in France. He worked on theatre musicals and wrote theme music for films. He was best known for writing the music and lyrics for the films Doctor Dolittle, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Scrooge, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, the songs "Goldfinger", "You Only Live Twice", "Can You Read My Mind (Love Theme)" (with John Williams) from Superman, and "Le Jazz Hot!" with Henry Mancini from Victor/Victoria. Bricusse resided in California and also had a flat in the United Kingdom next to the River Thames. He was married to Yvonne "Evie" Romain, who had a successful acting career in TV and movies, eventually starring in the 1967 film Double Trouble opposite Elvis Presley. They had a son, Adam.
October 20 - A woman shot and killed her father, sister and two workers at their home in Farwell, Michigan during the afternoon.
October 20 – The district attorney of Westchester County announces a criminal investigation into The Trump Organization.
October 21 – Film producer Alec Baldwin fatally shoots Halyna Hutchins and wounds Joel Souza during the filming of Rust, when a prop firearm is discharged by accident.
October 22: – Trump–Ukraine scandal: Former Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas is convicted by the SDNY for campaign financing crimes and for illegally funding foreign cash to Republicans during the 2018 midterms. The conviction is announced by Attorney Damian Williams.
October 22 – Vyacheslav Vedenin, Soviet and Russian cross-country skier and Olympic champion, dies at age 80. His silver medal over 50 km was the only medal won by a Soviet male skier at the 1968 Olympics, as his 4×10 km team placed fourth. At the next Olympics he was the Olympic flag bearer for the Soviet Union and won three medals, with golds in the 30 km and 4×10 km and a bronze in the 50 km. In the 4×10 km event Vedenin ran the last leg and won by 10 seconds, despite starting with a one-minute lag from Norway. His gold in the 30 km was the first individual win for a Soviet male skier at the Winter Olympics. Vedenin also won three medals at the 1970 World Championships with two golds (30 km, 4x10 km) and one silver (50 km). Vedenin had two sons, Vyacheslav and Andrey. Vyacheslav is an international skiing referee who worked at the 2014 Winter Olympics and also took Olympic Oath on behalf of officials. Andrei is a former biathlon competitor.
October 23 – In college football, the Illinois Fighting Illini defeats Penn State 20-18 in nine overtimes, making it the longest football game played in NCAA history. The game lasted for 4 hours and 11 minutes.
October 23 – Colombia's most wanted drug lord, Dario Antonio Úsuga, whose Gulf Clan controls many smuggling routes into the US and other countries, is captured by Colombia's armed forces.
October 24 – The 2021 Uzbek presidential election is held.
October 25 – The Sudanese military launches a coup against the government. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok is placed under house arrest. President Abdel Fattah al-Burhan declares a state of emergency and announces the dissolution of the government.
October 26 - A report comes out revealing that Brad Aldrich sexually assaulted Kyle Beach, a young prospect on the Chicago Blackhawks during the 2009–10 NHL season. The report also shows that Stan Bowman, Kevin Cheveldayoff, and Joel Quenneville met before the Stanley Cup Finals and allowed Aldrich to continue working until the end of the season.
October 26 - Roh Tae-woo, 6th President of South Korea, dies at age 88 in intensive care. When Roh first joined the military, his surname was transcribed in English as "No." He later changed it to "Roh" to avoid the negative connotations of "No" in English. He was involved in the 1979 military coup and 1980 Gwangju Uprising crackdown.
October 28 – Mark Zuckerberg announces that Facebook, Inc., owner of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus, will rebrand itself as Meta Platforms.
October 29 - MrBeast and Mark Rober launch #TeamSeas, a project to clean up 30 million pounds of ocean trash by the end of the year.
October 29 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorizes the emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children 5 through 11 years of age.
October 29 - Clément Mouamba, 16th Prime Minister of the Republic of Congo, dies at age 77 in Paris from COVID-19.
October 31 - The 2021 Japanese general election is held, with Fumio Kishida and the Liberal Democratic Party along with its coalition partner Komeito retaining a majority government.
October 31 – Dame Catherine Tizard, 16th Governor-General of New Zealand, dies at age 90 following a long illness.
October 31 – November 13 – The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference is held, after being postponed in 2020 due to COVID-19. A deal is agreed by world leaders, which includes a "phasedown" of unabated coal power, a 30% cut in methane emissions by 2030, plans for a halt to deforestation by 2030, and increased financial support for developing countries.
NOVEMBER
November 1 - The U.S. Supreme Court begins its arguments about the Texas Heartbeat Act.
November 1 - Kenosha unrest shooting: The trial of Kyle Rittenhouse begins in Kenosha.
November 1 - The number of recorded deaths from COVID-19 surpasses 5 million globally.
November 2 - New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections are held. Republican Glenn Youngkin wins the Virginia race, while Democrat Phil Murphy wins re-election in the New Jersey race. Murphy is the first Democratic governor of New Jersey to win a second term since 1977. He defeated Jack Ciattarelli by 3.2%. Youngkin defeated Terry McAuliffe by 2%.
November 2 - Republican Winsome Sears wins the Virginia lieutenant governor's race and will become the first black and first female lieutenant governor of the state of Virginia. She defeated Hala Ayala by 1.5%.
November 2 - A special election is held in Ohio to fill a vacancy in its 11th congressional district left by Marcia Fudge when she resigned to become President Biden's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Democrat Shontel Brown wins with 81,636 of the 103,565 votes cast (78.8%).
November 2 - Another special election is held in Ohio to fill a vacancy in its 15th congressional district due to the resignation of Steve Stivers effective May 15 to become president and CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. Republican Mike Carey wins with 93,255 of the 160,012 votes cast (58.3%).
November 2 - The Atlanta Braves win the 2021 World Series, defeating the Houston Astros.
November 3 - In Wisconsin, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers tests positive for COVID-19 and will miss the team's matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs.
November 3 - Smartmatic announces that they have sued conservative news channels One America News Network and Newsmax for defamation and false claims about their voting machines during the 2020 election.
November 3 - The World Health Organization gives emergency use listing to the Covaxin COVID-19 vaccine, the third non–Western vaccine to be authorized.
November 4 - An investigatory hearing is held by the State Bar of Texas to kick off a multi-start process that would decide the fate of attorney Sidney Powell, who spread conspiracy claims after the 2020 presidential election.
November 4 - The National Basketball Association announces that they have launched an investigation into Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver over allegations of sexism and racism.
November 5 - The U.S. House of Representatives votes 228–206 to pass the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package.
November 5 - A crowd crush during a Travis Scott concert at the Astroworld Festival in Houston kills ten people and injures more than 300.
November 6 - Cissé Mariam Kaïdama Sidibé, 12th Prime Minister of Mali, dies at age 73. She was the first female prime minister in the country's history. On March 22, 2012, mutinying soldiers unhappy with President Touré's management of the 2012 Tuareg rebellion seized power in a coup d'état. Amnesty International reported that Sidibé Cissé and other ministers had been detained by junta forces and were being held at a military camp in Kati.
November 6 - Yukhym Zvyahilsky, Acting Prime Minister of Ukraine, dies at age 88 from COVID-19. He is the only member of Verkhovna Rada who was elected to parliament in eight elections (from 1990 until Zvyahilsky did not participate in the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election). He was the son of a Jewish civil servant. A street is named after him in Kyiv raion in Donetsk city.
November 7 – Alabama native Nimblewill Nomad becomes the oldest person to hike on the Appalachian Trail. His real name is Meredith J. Eberhart and he was 83-years-old at the time. Eberhart published a book about one of his long-distance hikes called “Ten Million Steps”.
November 7 – Dean Stockwell, American actor, dies at age 85 of natural causes. His career spanned over 70 years. His roles included: NCIS: New Orleans, Battlestar Galactica, JAG, The Manchurian Candidate, Stargate SG-1, Star Trek: Enterprise, The Drew Carey Show, The Tony Danza Show, Sinbad: The Battle of the Dark Knights, Popular Science, Air Force One, McHale's Navy, Unabomber: The True Story, Snowy River: The McGregor Saga, Madonna: Innocence Lost, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Bonanza: The Return, Quantum Leap, Captain Planet and the Planeteers, The Twilight Zone, Murder, She Wrote, The Blue Iguana, Kenny Rogers as The Gambler, Part III, Beverly Hills Cop II, Miami Vice, Dune, Fox Mystery Theater, The A-Team, Greatest Heroes of the Bible, Columbo, Orson Welles' Great Mysteries, Mission: Impossible, The F.B.I., Bonanza, Rapture, The Greatest Show on Earth, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and Wagon Train. Stockwell was an "avowed environmentalist". He campaigned for the Democratic Party in the 1992 U.S. presidential election. He appeared at numerous science fiction conventions. He retired from acting in 2015 following health issues and focused his later life on sculpture and other visual art. His father Harry was also an actor.
November 8 - On October 15, the White House announced that it would reopen international borders to non-essential travel from the EU, UK, China, India, South Africa, Iran and Brazil on November 8. The travel restrictions have been in place for 18 months, coming into effect in the early days of the pandemic.
November 8 - Dominion Voting Systems announces that they have sued Fox Corporation and Fox Broadcasting Company, the parent company of Fox News, for defamation and for failing to preserve documents relating to the role Rupert Murdoch played in spreading false claims about Dominion.
November 9 – The South Dakota Legislature votes to consider the impeachment of Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg. On September 12, 2020, while driving home from a political fundraiser, Ravnsborg struck and killed a pedestrian, Joseph Boever. He was charged with three misdemeanors related to Boever's death—careless driving, driving out of his lane, and operating a car while using a cell phone. Ravnsborg pleaded no contest to driving out of his lane and operating a car while using a cell phone; the careless driving charge was dismissed.
November 11 – Vice President Harris travels to Paris to deliver a speech at the Paris Peace Forum. The purpose of the forum is to commemorate Armistice Day, as well as to “reflect together, propose concrete initiatives, reinvent multilateralism and all forms of contemporary cooperation”. Their focus is on the following issues: Peace & Security, Development, Inclusive economy, New technologies, Environment, Culture & Education, and Sustainability.
November 11 – SpaceX launches the Crew-3 mission, carrying four Expedition 66 crew members to the International Space Station.
November 11 - F. W. de Klerk, 7th and last State President of South Africa and Nobel laureate, dies at age 85 from mesothelioma. He and his government dismantled the apartheid system and introduced universal suffrage. Ideologically a conservative and an economic liberal, he led the National Party (NP) from 1989 to 1997. He permitted anti-apartheid marches to take place, legalized a range of previously banned anti-apartheid political parties, and freed imprisoned anti-apartheid activists such as Nelson Mandela. He also dismantled South Africa's nuclear weapons program. He was also condemned by South Africa's Afrikaner nationalists, who contended that by abandoning apartheid, he betrayed the interests of the country's Afrikaner minority.
November 11 - Graeme Edge, English drummer, songwriter and poet, dies at age 80 of metastatic cancer. He was best known as the co-founder and drummer of the English band the Moody Blues. In 2018, Edge was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
November 12 – United States Attorney General Merrick Garland announces that former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon has been charged by the Department of Justice for refusing to testify to the January 6 select committee investigating the Capitol riot and refusing to provide documents requested by the committee. Bannon turned himself in to the FBI three days later.
November 12 - Matthew Festing, 79th Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, dies at age 71 in a hospital, 8 days after collapsing.
November 13 – While speaking before a "ReAwaken America" audience in November 2021, Former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn said, "If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God."
November 13 – Wilbur Smith, Zambian-born South African novelist, dies at age 88. An accountant by training, he gained a film contract with his first published novel When the Lion Feeds. This encouraged him to become a full-time writer, and he developed three long chronicles of the South African experience which all became best-sellers. He acknowledged his publisher Charles Pick's advice to "write about what you know best", and his work takes in much authentic detail of the local hunting and mining way of life, along with the romance and conflict that goes with it. By the time of his death in 2021 he had published 49 books and had sold more than 140 million copies, 24 million of them in Italy (by 2014). His website announced that "He leaves behind him a treasure-trove of novels, as well as completed and yet to be published co-authored books and outlines for future stories."
November 14 - Unprecedented rain caused by an atmospheric river brings a series of floods to the Pacific Northwest.
November 14 - The 2021 Argentine legislative election is held.
November 14 - The 2021 Bulgarian general election is held.
November 15 - Radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is found liable for damages in lawsuits brought by parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, over Jones’s false claim the massacre was a hoax.
November 15 - President Biden signs the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law.
November 15 – László Z. Bitó, Hungarian physiologist and writer, dies at age 87. As a researcher, he developed a medication for glaucoma. As a writer, he wrote novels and essays. His family was forced to leave Budapest during the Communist era. Bitó graduated from Bard College in 1960 as a pre-med biology major. He went on to obtain his PhD from Columbia University in medical cell biology in 1963. His research led to the development of latanoprost (Xalatan), the drug that has saved the sight of millions of glaucoma sufferers. He published more than 140 scientific articles. At the University of Puerto Rico, he studied the effect of ageing on the eyes of monkeys. László Bitó gradually moved back to Hungary after the fall of Communism and started a new career as a writer. His first novels are based on his early personal memories of Hungarian history. His third novel, based on Biblical stories, "Abraham and Isaac" brought him literary success in 1998. The book was translated to several languages and was put on stage in Budapest theaters. "The Teachings of Isaac" and "Isaac of Nazareth" followed the philosophical ideas in "Abraham and Isaac" to a logical conclusion.
November 16 – Russia draws international condemnation following an anti-satellite weapon’s test that creates a cloud of space debris, threatening the International Space Station.
November 17 – The U.S. House of Representatives votes 222-208 to censure Rep. Paul Gosar (R–AZ) after he posted a photo-shopped anime clip of him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–NY) and threatening President Biden, making him the first lawmaker to be censured since Charlie Rangel in 2010.
November 19 - Vice President Harris serves as acting president from 10:10 am to 11:35 am EST, while President Biden undergoes a colonoscopy under anesthesia.
November 19 - The U.S. House of Representatives votes 220–213 to pass the Build Back Better Act, a $1.75 trillion social and climate spending package.
November 19 - State of Wisconsin v Kyle Rittenhouse: Mr. Rittenhouse is found not guilty on five charges of attempted murder, after three weeks of debate, and three days of jury deliberation.
November 21 – 2021 Waukesha Christmas parade attack: An SUV is driven through the annual Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, killing six people and injuring 62 others. The alleged driver of the vehicle, 39-year-old Darrell E. Brooks, is arrested and charged with five counts of murder.
November 21 – The 2021 Chilean general election is held.
November 23 – The Biden administration announces a release of 50 million oil barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to bring down inflation in conjunction with other countries' efforts, the largest release in history. An investigation into oil companies' practices is also announced.
November 23 – A bus crashes in Pernik Province, Bulgaria, killing 46 Macedonian tourists returning from Istanbul.
November 23 - Chun Doo-hwan, 5th President of South Korea, dies at age 90 from complications of blood cancer. Chun usurped power after orchestrating the December 12, 1979 military coup in the aftermath of the assassination of President Park Chung-hee. He cemented his military dictatorship in the May 17, 1980 military coup in which he declared martial law, and then established the authoritarian Fifth Republic of Korea on March 3, 1981. Chun conceded to free democratic elections as a result of the June 1987 Democratic Uprising, and was succeeded by his ally Roh Tae-woo who had been elected in the resulting December 1987 presidential election. In 1996 Chun was sentenced to death for his role in the Gwangju Massacre, but was pardoned the following year by President Kim Young-sam, on the advice of then-President-elect Kim Dae-jung, whom Chun's administration had sentenced to death some 20 years earlier. In his final years, Chun was criticized for his unapologetic stance on his actions as dictator.
November 23 - Sir James Fitz-Allen Mitchell, 2nd Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, dies at age 90 due to multiple illnesses, including gallstone, kidney failure, an enlarged prostate, dengue fever, and pneumonia. His father Captain Reginald was lost at sea during a January 1940 voyage in the Bermuda Triangle.
November 24 - NASA launches the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the first attempt to deflect an asteroid for the purpose of learning how to protect Earth. In September 2022, a space probe is set to deliberately crash into the minor-planet moon Dimorphos of the double asteroid Didymos to assess the future potential of a spacecraft impact to deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth through a transference of momentum.
November 24 - All three defendants are found guilty of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery.
November 24 - Magdalena Andersson resigns as Prime Minister-elect of Sweden hours after the Riksdag voted her in as Sweden's first female Prime Minister. She was due to take office on November 26. Instead, she takes office on November 30.
November 25 - The United Kingdom becomes the fourth country to surpass 10 million COVID-19 cases after the United States, India and Brazil.
November 26 - The World Health Organization convenes an emergency meeting in Geneva amid concerns over Omicron, a highly mutated variant of COVID-19 first identified in South Africa that appears more infectious than Delta.
November 26 – Stephen Sondheim, American composer and lyricist, dies at age 91 of cardiovascular disease. One of the most important figures in twentieth-century musical theater, Sondheim was credited for having "reinvented the American musical". He began his theater career by writing the lyrics for West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959) before becoming a composer and lyricist. His best-known works include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979), Sunday in the Park with George (1984), and Into the Woods (1987). Sondheim's accolades include eight Tony Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Tony in 2008), an Academy Award, eight Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, a Laurence Olivier Award, and a 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has a theater named after him both on Broadway and in the West End of London. He wrote five songs for 1990's Dick Tracy, including "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)", sung in the film by Madonna, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
November 28 - A man killed his four children and his mother-in-law in their home in Lancaster, California. He turned himself in to police an hour later and was charged with five counts of murder.
November 28 - Virgil Abloh, American fashion designer and entrepreneur, dies at age 41 with cardiac angiosarcoma. He was the artistic director of Louis Vuitton's menswear collection beginning in 2018, and was given increased creative responsibilities across the LVMH brand in early 2021. A trained architect, Abloh, who also worked in Chicago street fashion, entered the world of international fashion with an internship at Fendi in 2009, alongside American rapper Kanye West. The two then began an artistic collaboration that would launch Abloh's career into founding Off-White. The first African-American to be artistic director at a French luxury fashion house, Abloh was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018. Abloh's design aesthetic which bridged streetwear and luxury clothing was described as transformative by The New York Times. According to The Wall Street Journal, he reached a level of global fame unusual for a designer — an inspirational figure, said the BBC. He donated $20,500 to bail funds and other causes related to the George Floyd protest movement. Abloh received his first major award in 2011 when his work designing the cover art for American rappers Jay-Z and Kanye West's collaborative album Watch the Throne was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package. Abloh lived in Chicago with his wife, Shannon, and their two children.
November 28 - Norodom Ranariddh, 1st Prime Minister of Cambodia, dies at age 77. He was the second son of King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia and a half-brother of King Norodom Sihamoni. Ranariddh was the president of FUNCINPEC, a Cambodian royalist party. Ranariddh was ousted from his position as First Prime Minister in a coup d'état. He returned to Cambodia in March 1998, and led his party in the 1998 Cambodian general election. He was seen as a potential successor to Sihanouk as the King of Cambodia, until in 2001 he renounced his interest in the succession. Ranariddh remained out of public view since suffering a car accident during the 2018 election campaign, which saw the death of his second wife. He made frequent visits to France for medical treatment.
November 29 – Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey steps down as its chief executive, saying it is "finally time for me to leave". Parag Agrawal is named his successor.
November 29 – Kinza Clodumar, 7th President of Nauru, dies at age 76. Clodumar was also noted for having founded and led the Centre Party.
November 30 - Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows announces that he will testify to and cooperate with the January 6 committee.
November 30 - Oxford High School shooting – Four students are killed and seven other people are injured in a mass shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, Michigan.
November 30 - Barbados becomes a republic on its 55th anniversary of independence while remaining a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.
November 29 – Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey steps down as its chief executive, saying it is "finally time for me to leave". Parag Agrawal is named his successor.
November 29 – Kinza Clodumar, 7th President of Nauru, dies at age 76. Clodumar was also noted for having founded and led the Centre Party.
November 30 - Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows announces that he will testify to and cooperate with the January 6 committee.
November 30 - Oxford High School shooting – Four students are killed and seven other people are injured in a mass shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, Michigan.
November 30 - Barbados becomes a republic on its 55th anniversary of independence while remaining a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.
DECEMBER
December 1 – In California, the first case of Omicron, a highly mutated variant of COVID-19, is reported by the CDC in a San Francisco resident who had traveled to South Africa.
December 2 - Major League Baseball begins a lockout of its players. It is their first lockout since 1990.
December 2 - Two Georgia election officials, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, file a defamation lawsuit against The Gateway Pundit. The lawsuit is the first to be filed by individual election workers who were targeted during the 2020 presidential election.
December 4 – The 2021 Gambian presidential election is held and incumbent president Adama Barrow is reelected.
December 6 - The United States announces a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing in response to China's human rights record. Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia join shortly after.
December 6 - The United States becomes the first country to surpass 50 million COVID-19 cases.
December 6 – Kåre Willoch, 30th Prime Minister of Norway, dies at age 93. Following his retirement from politics he became an outspoken advocate of the environment and human rights and was widely respected for his activism including amongst Norway's political left. He also wrote several books. When Braathens SAFE Flight 139 was hijacked in 1985, the hijacker demanded to speak with Willoch.
December 7 – Mustafa Ben Halim, 3rd Prime Minister of Libya, dies at age 100. Through his political and private sector work, he supported the development of the modern Libyan state.
December 9 - Workers at a Starbucks in Buffalo, New York vote 19–8 to unionize, becoming the first Starbucks in the country to do so.
December 9 - A truck crash in Chiapas, Mexico, kills 55 migrants who were being smuggled in from Guatemala through Mexico to its border with the United States.
December 9 - Otar Patsatsia, 3rd Prime Minister of Georgia, dies at age 92 from COVID-19. A former Communist bureaucrat and enterprise manager, Patsatsia led the Georgian cabinet, with Eduard Shevardnadze as Georgia's Head of State, during the years of civil strife and economic crisis. His appointment as Prime Minister was an attempt to placate the supporters of President Zviad Gamsakhurdia, militarily ousted in 1992, as Patsatsia was from Zugdidi, the powerbase of Gamsakhurdia loyalists. After then holding a seat in the Parliament of Georgia from 1995 to 1999, he played no further role in politics.
December 9-10 - A virtual summit, Summit for Democracy, was hosted by the United States "to renew democracy at home and confront autocracies abroad". The three themes were: defending against authoritarianism, addressing and fighting corruption, and advancing respect for human rights. University of Sydney politics professor John Keane said the guestlist was a "cynically drawn up, bureaucratically crafted, agency-structured invitation list that includes states that by any measure are falling way down the democracy rankings or aren't democracies at all". Some invited countries, such as Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraq, were deemed "not free" in the democracy watchdog Freedom House’s latest “Freedom in the World” report.
December 10 – A late season tornado outbreak occurs in the Southern and Midwestern United States, causing major damage and killing at least 94 people.
December 10 – Michael Nesmith, American musician and television personality, dies at age 78 of heart failure. He was best known as a member of the pop rock band the Monkees and co-star of the TV series The Monkees (1966–1968). His songwriting credits include "Different Drum", which became a hit for Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys. After the break-up of the Monkees, Nesmith continued his successful songwriting and performing career. Nesmith founded Pacific Arts, a multimedia production and distribution company, in 1974, through which he helped pioneer the music video format. He created one of the first American television programs dedicated to music videos, PopClips, which aired on Nickelodeon in 1980. He was asked to help produce and create MTV, but had prior commitments with his production company. In 1981, he won the first Grammy Award for Video of the Year for his hour-long television show, Elephant Parts. He was also an executive producer of the film Repo Man (1984).
December 11 - Anne Rice, American author, dies at age 80 from complications of a stroke. Her birth name was Howard Allen Frances O'Brien. She was best known for her series of novels The Vampire Chronicles. Books from The Vampire Chronicles were the subject of two film adaptations—Interview with the Vampire (1994) and Queen of the Damned (2002). She was raised in an observant Catholic family but became an agnostic as a young adult. She began her professional writing career with the publication of Interview with the Vampire (1976), while living in California, and began writing sequels to the novel in the 1980s. In the mid-2000s, following a publicized return to Catholicism, Rice published the novels Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, fictionalized accounts of certain incidents in the life of Jesus. Several years later she distanced herself from organized Christianity, citing disagreement with the Catholic Church's stances on social issues but pledging that faith in God remained "central to [her] life." However, she later considered herself a secular humanist. She said that Christ is still central to her life, but not in the way He is presented by organized religion, in a July 28, 2014 Facebook post. Rice's books have sold over 100 million copies, making her one of the best-selling authors of modern times. While reaction to her early works was initially mixed, she gained a better reception with critics in the 1980s. Her writing style and the literary content of her works have been analyzed by literary commentators. She was married to poet and painter Stan Rice for 41 years, from 1961 until his death from brain cancer in 2002 at age 60. She and Stan had two children, Michele, who died of leukemia at age five, and Christopher, who is also an author. In addition to her vampire novels, Rice authored books such as The Feast of All Saints (adapted for television in 2001) and Servant of the Bones, which formed the basis of a 2011 comic book miniseries. Several books from The Vampire Chronicles have been adapted as comics and manga by various publishers. Rice also authored erotic fiction under the pen names Anne Rampling and A. N. Roquelaure, including Exit to Eden, which was later adapted into a 1994 film.
December 11 - Manuel Santana, Spanish tennis player, dies at age 83. He was ranked as amateur world No. 1 in 1965 by Ned Potter and in 1966 by Lance Tingay. He won the US Open in 1965 and, before winning Wimbledon the following year, he was quoted as saying "grass is just for cows", favoring artificial surfaces. Rafael Nadal reacted to his death by posting on Twitter, "the only other Spanish man to win Wimbledon. We will miss you. Thank you a thousand times for what you have done for our country and for having opened the way for so many people. You have always been a point of reference, a friend and a person very close to everyone." Spanish King Felipe VI also reacted by posting on Twitter, "there are people who become legends and make a country great. Manolo Santana was and will always be one of them." Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez lamented the loss of a "legend". He tweeted, "my condolences to Manolo Santana's family, his loved ones and the tennis world." His father was imprisoned for his political beliefs during the early years of the Franco dictatorship.
December 12 - The 2021 New Caledonian independence referendum is held. New Caledonia is a French territory in the South Pacific. The poll was the third and final to be held under the terms of the Nouméa Accord, following votes in 2018 and 2020, in which independence was rejected by 56.7% and 53.3% respectively. Voters overwhelmingly rejected independence, with 96.50% voting against independence and 3.50% for independence. The referendum took place amid a boycott from the indigenous Kanak population, whose leaders had called for the vote to be postponed following a large-scale COVID-19 outbreak beginning in September 2021 which caused a total of 280 deaths, and highlighted that Kanak mourning rituals lasted up to a year.
December 12 - Russia becomes the fifth country to surpass 10 million COVID-19 cases after the United States, India, Brazil and the United Kingdom.
December 12 - Sir Paulias Matane, 8th Governor-General of Papua New Guinea, dies at age 90. His memoir My Childhood in New Guinea has been on the school curriculum since the 1970s. He was a long-time contributor and columnist for The National. He wrote 44 books which deliberately use extremely simple English, focusing in part on his own overseas travels, including three on the State of Israel. His writing is intended to persuade Papua New Guineans that books are a useful source of information and that they should not regard them as something only for foreigners. Matane served as the first Papua New Guinean Ambassador to the United States in the years 1975–76 following the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. He was also PNG's Ambassador to the United Nations from 1975 and in 1979 was elected as a vice-president of the General Assembly.
December 12 - Vicente Fernández, Mexican singer and actor, dies at age 81 from a cervical spine injury, Guillain–Barré syndrome, and pneumonia. Fernández's work earned him three Grammy Awards, nine Latin Grammy Awards, fourteen Lo Nuestro Awards, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In his 50-year career he sold more than 65 million records and recorded more than 80 albums and more than 300 songs, making him one of the best-selling regional Mexican artists of all time. In 2016, Fernández retired from performing live, although he continued to record and publish music. In 2019 Fernández stated that he had been interned at a hospital in Houston to undergo a liver surgery, but he decided to reject a transplant because he did not "want to sleep with [his] wife while having the liver of another man, who could have been a homosexual or a drug user". With his sons Alejandro and Vicente Jr, both singers, Vicente went on stage to sing with them on several occasions. The last time he went on stage was to sing with his son Alejandro, and to promote the musical career of one of his grandsons, Alex, in 2019. He has 11 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren. On the day of his death, his fortune was valued at $25 million. He was invited to the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia to sing the famous Cielito lindo, but ended up singing Los Mandados, considered an anthem for Mexican immigrants, generating criticism from those present. On April 16, 2016, at the end of his farewell concert, he cried out that he would "spit on" the then Republican Party primary candidate for the U.S. presidential election Donald Trump for his anti-immigration speech. Fernández, later that year, expressed his support for Hillary Clinton with a song titled "El Corrido de Hillary Clinton". Following the last debate between Clinton and Trump, Clinton invited Fernández to the celebration at the Craig Ranch Regional Park Amphitheater, Las Vegas.
December 15 – An outbreak of more than 10 wildfires begins in the state of Kansas, scorching an area of more than 163,000 acres on the first day they were reported due to gusty winds and dry grassland. The outbreak leaves the deaths of two people and injures three more.
December 15 – Fayez Tarawneh, 31st Prime Minister of Jordan, dies at age 72. He obtained a master's degree in 1974 and a PhD in 1980 in economics, both from the University of Southern California. Tarawneh was the Jordanian ambassador to the United States from 1993 until 1997, and headed the Jordanian delegation that was in charge of peace negotiations with Israel in 1994. In 1995, Tarawneh was awarded the Gabriel Peace Prize together with Israeli negotiator Elyakim Rubinstein for his role in the talks that led to the signing of the Israel-Jordan peace treaty in October 1994.
December 17 - The World Health Organization gives emergency use listing to the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine.
December 18 – Lord Richard Rogers, Italian–born British architect, dies at age 88. He was noted for his modernist and functionalist designs in high-tech architecture. Rogers was perhaps best known for his work on the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Lloyd's building and Millennium Dome, both in London, the Senedd building, in Cardiff, and the European Court of Human Rights building, in Strasbourg. He was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal, the Thomas Jefferson Medal, the RIBA Stirling Prize, the Minerva Medal, and the Pritzker Prize. In October 1938 his father William Nino Rogers fled Fascist Italy and anti-Jewish laws under Mussolini. In May 2006, Rogers' practice was chosen as the architect of Tower 3 of the new World Trade Center in New York City, replacing the old World Trade Center which was destroyed in the September 11 attacks. He had fourteen grandchildren.
December 19 - The 2021 Hong Kong legislative election, originally scheduled for September 6, 2020 but postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is held.
December 19 - The second round of the 2021 Chilean presidential election is held; leftist candidate Gabriel Boric is elected President.
December 20 – COVID-19 pandemic: The CDC reports that Omicron is now the dominant strain in the US, accounting for three-quarters of cases, displacing the Delta variant.
December 21 – Sir Carlyle Glean, 5th Governor-General of Grenada, dies at age 89.
December 23 – Joan Didion, American writer, dies at age 87 from complications of Parkinson's disease. Her career began in the 1950s after she won an essay contest sponsored by Vogue magazine. Her writing during the 1960s through the late 1970s engaged audiences in the realities of the counterculture of the 1960s and the Hollywood lifestyle. Her political writing often concentrated on the subtext of political and social rhetoric. In 1991, she wrote the earliest mainstream media article to suggest the Central Park Five had been wrongfully convicted. In 2005, she won the National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for The Year of Magical Thinking. She later adapted the book into a play, which premiered on Broadway in 2007. In 2013, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. Didion was profiled in the Netflix documentary The Center Will Not Hold, directed by her nephew Griffin Dunne, in 2017.
December 25 – NASA, ESA, the Canadian Space Agency and the Space Telescope Science Institute launch the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope.
December 26 - Karolos Papoulias, 6th President of Greece, dies at age 92. With his visit to Washington, D.C. in 1985 and the return visit of Secretary of State George Shultz, he revitalized Greek-U.S. relations which had gone through a delicate phase during the previous years. Apart from his native Greek, he also spoke English, French, German, and Italian.
December 26 - Desmond Tutu, South African Anglican archbishop, activist and Nobel laureate, dies at age 90 from cancer. He was known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996, in both cases being the first black African to hold the position. Theologically, he sought to fuse ideas from black theology with African theology. He emerged as one of the most prominent opponents of South Africa's apartheid system of racial segregation and white minority rule. Although warning the National Party government that anger at apartheid would lead to racial violence, as an activist he stressed non-violent protest and foreign economic pressure to bring about universal suffrage. He oversaw the introduction of female priests. Tutu assisted as a mediator between rival black factions. Tutu campaigned for gay rights and spoke out on a wide range of subjects, among them criticizing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians which he described as apartheid, and his opposition to the Iraq War.
December 27 - A gunman went on a shooting spree across multiple locations in the Denver metropolitan area before dying in a shootout with police. He killed 5 people.
December 29 - British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell is convicted in a federal court on five of six charges relating to her recruiting and trafficking young girls to be sexually abused by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.
December 29 - COVID-19 pandemic: The U.S. breaks its single-day case record, with over 488,000 new infections, nearly doubling the highest number from the previous winter.
December 30 – Tens of thousands are evacuated as wildfires sweep through Boulder County, fanned by winds of up to 105 mph. The fires are the most destructive in Colorado's history.
December 31 - During an outdoor New Year's Eve party in Gulfport, Mississippi, a physical fight started and escalated to a shooting, with multiple people firing guns, and 4 people died.
December 31 – Betty White, American actress, dies at age 99 after a stroke on Christmas Day, less than 3 weeks before her 100th birthday. A pioneer of early television, with a career spanning seven decades, White was noted for her vast work in the entertainment industry and being one of the first women to work both in front of and behind the camera. She was the first woman to produce a sitcom (Life with Elizabeth) in the United States, which contributed to her being named honorary Mayor of Hollywood in 1955. White is often referred to as the "First Lady of Television", a title used for a 2018 documentary detailing her life and career. After making the transition to television from radio, White became a staple panelist of American game shows, including Password, Match Game, Tattletales, To Tell the Truth, The Hollywood Squares, and The $25,000 Pyramid. Dubbed "the first lady of game shows", White became the first woman to receive the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show Host for the show Just Men! in 1983. She was also known for her appearances on The Bold and the Beautiful, Boston Legal, and The Carol Burnett Show. Her biggest roles include Sue Ann Nivens on the CBS sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1973–1977), Rose Nylund on the NBC sitcom The Golden Girls (1985–1992), and Elka Ostrovsky on the TV Land sitcom Hot in Cleveland (2010–2015). She gained renewed popularity after her appearance in the 2009 romantic comedy film The Proposal (2009), and was subsequently the subject of a successful Facebook-based campaign to host Saturday Night Live in 2010, garnering her a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. White earned a Guinness World Record for "Longest TV career by an entertainer (female)" in 2014 and in 2018 for her lengthy work in television. White received eight Emmy Awards in various categories, three American Comedy Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Grammy Award. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was a 1995 Television Hall of Fame inductee.
December 15 – An outbreak of more than 10 wildfires begins in the state of Kansas, scorching an area of more than 163,000 acres on the first day they were reported due to gusty winds and dry grassland. The outbreak leaves the deaths of two people and injures three more.
December 15 – Fayez Tarawneh, 31st Prime Minister of Jordan, dies at age 72. He obtained a master's degree in 1974 and a PhD in 1980 in economics, both from the University of Southern California. Tarawneh was the Jordanian ambassador to the United States from 1993 until 1997, and headed the Jordanian delegation that was in charge of peace negotiations with Israel in 1994. In 1995, Tarawneh was awarded the Gabriel Peace Prize together with Israeli negotiator Elyakim Rubinstein for his role in the talks that led to the signing of the Israel-Jordan peace treaty in October 1994.
December 17 - The World Health Organization gives emergency use listing to the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine.
December 18 – Lord Richard Rogers, Italian–born British architect, dies at age 88. He was noted for his modernist and functionalist designs in high-tech architecture. Rogers was perhaps best known for his work on the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Lloyd's building and Millennium Dome, both in London, the Senedd building, in Cardiff, and the European Court of Human Rights building, in Strasbourg. He was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal, the Thomas Jefferson Medal, the RIBA Stirling Prize, the Minerva Medal, and the Pritzker Prize. In October 1938 his father William Nino Rogers fled Fascist Italy and anti-Jewish laws under Mussolini. In May 2006, Rogers' practice was chosen as the architect of Tower 3 of the new World Trade Center in New York City, replacing the old World Trade Center which was destroyed in the September 11 attacks. He had fourteen grandchildren.
December 19 - The 2021 Hong Kong legislative election, originally scheduled for September 6, 2020 but postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is held.
December 19 - The second round of the 2021 Chilean presidential election is held; leftist candidate Gabriel Boric is elected President.
December 20 – COVID-19 pandemic: The CDC reports that Omicron is now the dominant strain in the US, accounting for three-quarters of cases, displacing the Delta variant.
December 21 – Sir Carlyle Glean, 5th Governor-General of Grenada, dies at age 89.
December 23 – Joan Didion, American writer, dies at age 87 from complications of Parkinson's disease. Her career began in the 1950s after she won an essay contest sponsored by Vogue magazine. Her writing during the 1960s through the late 1970s engaged audiences in the realities of the counterculture of the 1960s and the Hollywood lifestyle. Her political writing often concentrated on the subtext of political and social rhetoric. In 1991, she wrote the earliest mainstream media article to suggest the Central Park Five had been wrongfully convicted. In 2005, she won the National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for The Year of Magical Thinking. She later adapted the book into a play, which premiered on Broadway in 2007. In 2013, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. Didion was profiled in the Netflix documentary The Center Will Not Hold, directed by her nephew Griffin Dunne, in 2017.
December 25 – NASA, ESA, the Canadian Space Agency and the Space Telescope Science Institute launch the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope.
December 26 - Karolos Papoulias, 6th President of Greece, dies at age 92. With his visit to Washington, D.C. in 1985 and the return visit of Secretary of State George Shultz, he revitalized Greek-U.S. relations which had gone through a delicate phase during the previous years. Apart from his native Greek, he also spoke English, French, German, and Italian.
December 26 - Desmond Tutu, South African Anglican archbishop, activist and Nobel laureate, dies at age 90 from cancer. He was known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996, in both cases being the first black African to hold the position. Theologically, he sought to fuse ideas from black theology with African theology. He emerged as one of the most prominent opponents of South Africa's apartheid system of racial segregation and white minority rule. Although warning the National Party government that anger at apartheid would lead to racial violence, as an activist he stressed non-violent protest and foreign economic pressure to bring about universal suffrage. He oversaw the introduction of female priests. Tutu assisted as a mediator between rival black factions. Tutu campaigned for gay rights and spoke out on a wide range of subjects, among them criticizing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians which he described as apartheid, and his opposition to the Iraq War.
December 27 - A gunman went on a shooting spree across multiple locations in the Denver metropolitan area before dying in a shootout with police. He killed 5 people.
December 29 - British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell is convicted in a federal court on five of six charges relating to her recruiting and trafficking young girls to be sexually abused by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.
December 29 - COVID-19 pandemic: The U.S. breaks its single-day case record, with over 488,000 new infections, nearly doubling the highest number from the previous winter.
December 30 – Tens of thousands are evacuated as wildfires sweep through Boulder County, fanned by winds of up to 105 mph. The fires are the most destructive in Colorado's history.
December 31 - During an outdoor New Year's Eve party in Gulfport, Mississippi, a physical fight started and escalated to a shooting, with multiple people firing guns, and 4 people died.
December 31 – Betty White, American actress, dies at age 99 after a stroke on Christmas Day, less than 3 weeks before her 100th birthday. A pioneer of early television, with a career spanning seven decades, White was noted for her vast work in the entertainment industry and being one of the first women to work both in front of and behind the camera. She was the first woman to produce a sitcom (Life with Elizabeth) in the United States, which contributed to her being named honorary Mayor of Hollywood in 1955. White is often referred to as the "First Lady of Television", a title used for a 2018 documentary detailing her life and career. After making the transition to television from radio, White became a staple panelist of American game shows, including Password, Match Game, Tattletales, To Tell the Truth, The Hollywood Squares, and The $25,000 Pyramid. Dubbed "the first lady of game shows", White became the first woman to receive the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show Host for the show Just Men! in 1983. She was also known for her appearances on The Bold and the Beautiful, Boston Legal, and The Carol Burnett Show. Her biggest roles include Sue Ann Nivens on the CBS sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1973–1977), Rose Nylund on the NBC sitcom The Golden Girls (1985–1992), and Elka Ostrovsky on the TV Land sitcom Hot in Cleveland (2010–2015). She gained renewed popularity after her appearance in the 2009 romantic comedy film The Proposal (2009), and was subsequently the subject of a successful Facebook-based campaign to host Saturday Night Live in 2010, garnering her a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. White earned a Guinness World Record for "Longest TV career by an entertainer (female)" in 2014 and in 2018 for her lengthy work in television. White received eight Emmy Awards in various categories, three American Comedy Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Grammy Award. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was a 1995 Television Hall of Fame inductee.
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