Fun fact: First used in a private communiqué by Google co-founder Larry Page, ‘googling’ entered into the lexicon nearly as quickly as the company became the leader in Internet search. One of the earliest uses in popular culture was by the character Xander in the television program Buffy The Vampire Slayer. In 2006, both the Oxford English and Merriam-Webster dictionaries added ‘google’ as a new verb defined as “to use the Google search engine to seek online information.”
January
- January 1 – Russia cuts the shipment of natural gas to Ukraine over a price dispute.
- January 2 – Sago Mine explosion kills 12 coal miners in Buckhannon, West Virginia.
- January 4 – Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel, suffers a severe stroke and cerebral hemorrhage.
- January 5 – A hotel in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, collapses, killing 76 pilgrims visiting to perform Hajj.
- January 12 – A stampede during the Stoning of the Devil ritual on the last day at the Hajj in Mina, Saudi Arabia, kills 362 pilgrims.
- January 15 – NASA‘s Stardust mission successfully ends, the first to return dust from a comet.
- January 16 – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf assumes office as President of Liberia, the first female elected head of state in Africa.
- January 19 – NASA launches the first space mission to Pluto as a rocket hurls the New Horizons spacecraft on a 9-year journey.
- January 25 – Pope Benedict XVI issues his first encycylical, Deus caritas est.
- January 27 – Celebrations are held in Salzburg and around the world, for the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
February
- February 3 – Egyptian passenger ferry, MS al-Salam Boccaccio 98 carrying more than 1,400 people, sinks in the Red Sea off the Saudi coast, with only 388 rescued.
- February 4 – The Wowowee stampede at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig City, Philippines, kills 74 people and leaves 600 injured.
- February 10–26 – The 2006 Winter Olympics are held in Turin, Italy.
- February 17 – A massive mudslide occurs in Southern Leyte, Philippines; the official death toll is set at 1,126.
- February 19 – Pasta de Conchos mine disaster: Sixty-five miners die after becoming trapped underground, following an explosion in Nueva Rosita, Mexico.
- February 23 – Apple announces one billioneth download on Itunes.
March
- March 4 – The final contact attempt with Pioneer 10 receives no response.
- March 8 – Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is found dead in his prison cell. He was facing trial on genocide and war crimes for his role in the nationalist Balkan wars during the 1990’s. He had been on trial since 2002.
- March 9 – NASA‘s Cassini–Huygens spacecraft discovers geysers of a liquid substance shooting from Saturn‘s moon Enceladus, signaling a possible presence of water.
- March 10 – NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter enters orbit around Mars.
- March 15 – FBI Special Agent Harry Samit – accusing his bosses of acting only to protect their positions with the FBI, said they were guilty of ‘criminal negligence and obstruction’ for blocking his attempts to learn whether terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui was part of a larger cell about to hijack planes in the U.S
- March 16 – The United Nations General Assembly votes overwhelmingly to establish the United Nations Human Rights Council.
- March 21 – Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams found the popular social-networking service Twitter. They officially launch the site later in the year.
April
- April 5 – A swan with Avian flu is discovered in Cellardyke in Fife, Scotland (the first case in the United Kingdom).
- April 10 – A fire at the Brand India Fair, Victoria Park, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India, kills at least 100.
- April 11
- The European Space Agency‘s Venus Express spaceprobe enters Venus‘ orbit.
- Nuclear program of Iran: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad confirms that Iran has successfully produced a few grams of low-grade enriched uranium.
- April 20 – Iran announces a deal with Russia, involving a joint uranium enrichment firm on Russian soil; 9 days later Iran announces that it will not move all activity to Russia, thus leading to a de facto termination of the deal.
May
- May 1 – “A Day Without Immigrants” – as thousands of (mostly Mexican) workers and their families participate in a boycott of work and commerce- all to demonstrate their importance to the U. S. economy and to demand changes in immigration law that would give illegal migrants a path to citizenship. A crowd estimated at 250,000, marched to Los Angeles City Hall.
- May – The Human Genome Project publishes the last chromosome sequence, in Nature.
- May 24 – East Timor‘s Foreign Minister José Ramos-Horta officially requests military assistance from the governments of Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Portugal.
- May 27 – The 6.4 Mw Yogyakarta earthquake shakes central Java with an MSK intensity of IX (Destructive), leaving more than 5,700 dead and 37,000 injured.
- May 28 – Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants Breaks the record held by Babe Ruth and hits his 715th home run.
- May 29 – Sidoarjo mud flow: The world’s biggest mud volcano is created by the blowout of a natural gas well being drilled in the subdistrict of Porong, Sidoarjo in East Java, Indonesia. This results in displacement of more than 11,000 persons from 8 villages, as well as damage to road and power infrastructures. Several (Twenty-five) factories are also abandoned.
June
- June 3 – Montenegro declares independence after a May 21 referendum. The state union of Serbia and Montenegro is dissolved on June 5, leaving Serbia as the successor state.
- June 9 – July 9 – The 2006 FIFA World Cup begins in Germany.
- June 18
- June 28
- Operation Summer Rains: Israel launches an offensive against militants in Gaza.
- The United States Armed Forces withdraws its forces in Iceland, thereby disbanding the Iceland Defense Force.
July
- July 1 – The Qinghai–Tibet Railway launches a trial operation, making Tibet the last province-level entity of China to have a conventional railway.
- July 6 – The Nathu La pass between India and China, sealed during the Sino-Indian War, re-opens for trade after 44 years.
- July 9
- Italy wins its fourth FIFA World Cup title.
- S7 Airlines Flight 778 crashes into a concrete barrier shortly after landing, killing at least 122 people and leaving many injured.
- July 10 – Pakistan International Airlines Flight 688 crashes in Multan, Pakistan, shortly after takeoff.
- July 11 – A series of coordinated bomb attacks strikes several commuter trains in Mumbai, India, during the evening rush hour.
- July 12 – 2006 Lebanon War: Israeli troops invade Lebanon in response to Hezbollah kidnapping 2 Israeli soldiers and killing 3. Hezbollah declares open war against Israel 2 days later.
- July 15 – Twitter is launched.
- July 17 – The 7.7 Mw Pangandaran tsunami earthquake severely affects the Indonesian island of Java, killing 668 people, and leaving more than 9,000 injured.
- July 18 – The SS Nomadic, the last floating link to Titanic, returns home to a large reception in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
August
- August 11 – A resolution to end the 2006 Lebanon War is unanimously accepted by the United Nations Security Council.
- August 22
- Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Flight 612 crashes near the Russian border in Ukraine, killing 171 people, including 45 children.
- The ICM awards Grigori Perelman the Fields Medal for proving the Poincaré conjecture, one of 7 Millennium Prize Problems; Perelman refuses the medal.
- August 24 – The International Astronomical Union defines ‘planet‘ at its 26th General Assembly, demoting Pluto to the status of ‘dwarf planet‘ more than 70 years after its discovery.
- August 25 – Former Prime Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Lazarenko is sentenced to 9 years in prison for money laundering, wire fraud, and extortion.
- August 24, 2006 – Pluto is downgraded to a dwarf planet by the IAU.
- August 27 – Comair Flight 5191 crashes on takeoff from Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky bound for Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta. Of the passengers and crew, 49 of 50 are confirmed dead in the hours following the crash.
September
- September 13 – Dawson College shooting in Montreal: One killed, nineteen injured.
- September 19 – Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand declares a state of emergency in Bangkok as members of the Royal Thai Army stage a coup d’état. The army announces the removal of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra from power.
- September 25 – The New Orleans Superdome reopens – and the Saints play the Falcons on “Monday Night Football.” This after a $185-million renovation of a stadium many believed could not be salvaged.
- September 29 – Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 (Boeing 737-800) collides with a business jet over the Amazon rainforest, killing all 155 on board.
October
- October 2 – West Nickel Mines School shooting: Charles Carl Roberts fatally shoots five Amish girls and wounds five others in a shooting at the West Nickel Mines Parochial School in the Old Order Amish community of Bart Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
- October 9 – North Korea claims to have conducted its first-ever nuclear test.
- October 13 – South Korean Ban Ki-moon is elected as the new Secretary-General of the United Nations.
- October 16 – In Sri Lanka, the Habarana massacre kills between 92 and 103 sailors and wounds more than 150 people.
- October 17 – The population of the United States exceeds 300 million.
- October 29 – ADC Airlines Flight 53 crashes shortly after takeoff in Nigeria, killing 96 people.
November
- November 2 – No. 5, 1948 by Jackson Pollock becomes the most expensive painting after it is sold privately for $140 million.
- November 5 – Former President of Iraq Saddam Hussein is sentenced to death by hanging by the Iraqi Special Tribunal.
- November 6 – Faith Hill says she was just joking when cameras showed her screaming “what?” in apparent anger when she lost the female vocalist of the year award to newcomer Carrie Underwood at the Country Music Assn. Awards on Monday night in Nashville. Dispite a PR back peddle, clearly she showed little class at this moment.
- November 8 – Mercury transits the sun. It is visible from the Americas, Eastern China, Japan, Australia, and Polynesia.
- November 12 – The former Soviet republic of South Ossetia holds a referendum on independence from Georgia.
- November 15 – Al Jazeera launches its English-language news channel, Al Jazeera English.
- November 19 – The Wii is introduced.
- November 23 – A series of car bombs and mortar attacks in Sadr City, Baghdad, kill at least 215 people and injure 257 other people.
- November 30 – Typhoon Durian triggers a massive mudslide and kills at least 720 people in Albay province on the island of Luzon in the Philippines.
December
- December 5 – The military seizes power in Fiji, in a coup d’état led by Commodore Josaia Vorenathalie qe “Frank” Bainimarama.
- December 11 – Felipe Calderón sends the Mexican military to combat the drug cartels and put down the violence in the state of Michoacán, initiating the Mexican Drug War.
- December 12 – Swift raids: Homeland Security police detain workers at 6 meatpacking plants in the midwestern U.S.
- December 13 – The Chinese River Dolphin or Baiji becomes extinct.
- December 24 – Ethiopia admits its troops have intervened in Somalia.
- December 26 – An oil pipeline explodes in Nigeria‘s commercial capital, Lagos, killing at least 200 people.
- December 30 – Basque nationalist group ETA detonates a van bomb at Madrid-Barajas Airport in Madrid, Spain, ending a nine-month ceasefire.